


A Quarter To Sunrise

by Blurhawaii



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:32:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blurhawaii/pseuds/Blurhawaii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Western AU. Demons still exist. Sam and Dean grew up hearing tales of the yellow eyed man that killed their mother. Now that they are older, they spend their lives both chasing down the allusive man and being chased themselves. A preacher, Castiel, somehow gets involved and eventually reveals that he is more weaved into their tale than any of them ever realized. A, mystery filled, road trip story about revenge, set on horseback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

November 20, 1888.

There are things in this world that should not exist. They hide behind flesh and bone that do not belong to them and decide the fates of human life more than we notice or are willing to admit. Countless lives, including my own, have been lost to them and I have hunted far too many for a lifetime. But it will never be enough.

I give up.

There is only one that I want. One that I want to kill. One person that I want to avenge. People can learn to save themselves. Mary, I’ll be seeing you soon.  
\------------------------

Dean slammed back his first fifth of whiskey of the night. The slightly warm liquid settled in his empty stomach, creating a welcomed sensation born only out of repetition. In a practised motion, he pushed the now drained glass across the wooden bar top, raised his hand to signal for a refill and then finally allowed himself to relax as much as his intuition permitted.

The place he had wandered into was dimly lit. Patrons were scattered sparingly across an array of tables, nursing their own escapes from reality, their heads held low. Dean let his eyes wander over them all in turn. He scanned their faces as best he could but came up disappointed as usual.

He downed his re-filled glass, wincing at the sharp taste as he fiddled with the brim of his hat. His eyes continued to travel around the establishment until he spotted the familiar shape of a body half hidden in the shadows against the back wall. Hips shifted provocatively at the attention and the woman moved further into the room, revealing scantily clad flesh and a heavily made up face. Their eyes met across the room and Dean gulped, his throat strangely dry. He needed more alcohol.

Light spilled into the saloon as the swinging doors were pushed open. Drunks, all around, hissed and ducked their heads further into their chests while Dean used the distraction to tear his eyes away from the slowly approaching woman dressed in dirty reds and browns. A tall man had dragged himself into the room and was making his way towards Dean, his longish hair flopping against his forehead as his boots stomped on the worn wooden floor. When he dropped into the seat next to Dean at the bar, the woman in red stopped and frowned before turning back to her spot against the wall with a huff.

“No one’s seen him. I asked around and I even stopped by the sheriff’s office but apparently no one remembers seeing him around,” the man sighed. He fixes Dean’s empty glass with a calculated look but Dean quickly dismisses it with a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t look so discouraged, Sammy. The son of a bitch is here somewhere. I know it. We’ve tracked him this far; he can’t have just disappeared.” Sam nods in reluctant acceptance and sets about trying to brush the dirt and dust off his pants leg. Dean turns his attention to the still swaying saloon doors; their continued movement caused the room to flicker between sunlit and shady. “Besides, why would he go anywhere near the sheriff’s office?”

“I guess,” Sam sighed and ran a sweaty hand through his hair, attempting to sweep it out of his face. He let his hand drop back onto his leg when his hair refused to cooperate. “So what are we going to do?”

“We should probably stay here for tonight. If he is here, we’ll be more likely to find him after dark anyway,” said Dean as he eyed the bottle of whiskey resting at the other end of the bar.

“Alright. I’ll try and find us a room somewhere,” said Sam while he climbed off the stool. He towered over Dean. “You can just stay here and get drunk again.”

Dean just smiled at Sam when he pointedly caught his eye. Knowing that his thinly veiled dissatisfied comments would get him nowhere, Sam huffed and turned on his heel. He stalked towards the doors, roughly pushed them open once more and disappeared into the bright world outside. Pained groans met the sharp reintroduction of sunlight and Dean chuckled quietly to himself.

The woman in red was back to squirming against the wall in a way that Dean assumed was meant to be alluring. He chose to ignore her and instead asked for another re-fill.  
\-------------------------

 

August 13, 1883.

I didn’t think it would be this easy. The killing comes naturally to me; so much so that it leads me to worry if I could have carried out the same actions years earlier. Would I still have felt the same overwhelming sense of relief and satisfaction that I feel now when I watch the black drain out of their eyes, if I wasn’t so blinded by grief? I am no longer sure I can separate the two worlds.

Even though my mind seems to take solace in returning these souls back to hell, I am kept grounded by the fact that with each empty shell of a body littering my path, I am one step closer to the monster that I am desperately tracking.

I hope that son of a bitch is enjoying his last days above the crust of the earth because they are soon coming to an end.  
\---------------------------

 

“Dean, we have to stop!” Sam shouted over the constant noise of hooves colliding with the dry ground. “We can’t keep pushing the horses or they’re not going to get us anywhere!”

Sam’s voice held a desperate edge that almost made Dean consider slowing down, but then the anger building in his chest made itself known again. This, along with the faint trace of embarrassment that burned in his throat, just spurred him on faster.

He tightened his hold on the reins of his exhausted horse and curled his legs closer to its body. The horse snorted, clearly agitated, but continued to sprint.

“Dean!”

Sam was struggling to keep up. His horse was lagging so he allowed himself to slow down considerably. Dust billowed up at the disturbance while Sam squinted towards the setting sun under the brim of his hat. Through the cloud of dust, Dean was still moving forward.

With a sigh, Sam glanced back at the rapidly darkening small town they were leaving behind and then back to the orange-tinted barren land they were racing towards.

“Dean, just face it, he’s gone! We’re not going to catch up to him like this!” Sam shouted again.

He wasn’t sure if his voice had carried over the clamour of the horses and the distance between them, but then Dean pulled sharply back on the reins and turned back to face him. His expression was fierce.

“He was here, right under our noses and we let him get away. I let him get away,” Dean argued, his voice rough from a mixture of emotions and exposure to the harsh climate. When Sam met his eyes, he gulped and immediately regretted it when his throat burned and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Sam dug his heels in gently and closed the gap between himself and his brother. Dean was breathing hard and fast, anger forcing him to breathe through a clenched jaw.

“Look, I know you think all this is your responsibility but, in reality, it’s as much my fault as it is yours, Dean.” Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes. “No, I mean it. I want to find that son of a bitch just as much as you do, but we can’t do it if we die from exhaustion in the middle of nowhere.”

“We were so close,” said Dean. Sam nodded his head empathetically.

“Yes. And like before, he got away. But that’s not going to happen every time. It gets narrower each time, Dean, and very soon, he’s going to slip up. We just have to make sure we’re ready for it when he does.”

Dean kept Sam’s gaze for a moment longer and then visibly deflated. His jaw loosened and his shoulders slumped; he looked every bit the defeated broken man he had been forced to become over the recent years.

Sam shifted uncomfortably on his saddle and started a slow trot against the direction of the setting sun.  
“The next town is an hour ride from here. We can leave first thing in the morning,” said Sam as though it was the most simple, logical decision he had ever made.

He didn’t look back while he steadily made his way back towards the town, but when Dean eventually fell into step beside him, he did clap a reassuring hand onto his shoulder.

“I mean, I already paid for a room, we might as well get a decent night’s sleep for a change,” added Sam with a smile.  
\--------------------------

February 19, 1880.

The knife works.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to think. A man you’ve never met hands you a knife and tells you it can kill anything, you should probably be a little concerned.

But it works. Just as he said it would.

Bullets may tear right through them but the knife hits something. Sparks fly from its metal blade, just as sparks appear in the eyes of its victims right before they drop to the ground. My bullets could never manage that, but the knife can.

It has taken me years to get to this point. Years to work up the courage to even pick it up. The knife has been in my possession for all this time and it’s only now that I realise its power.

With this, I think I’m ready to find him. With this, I can kill him.  
\------------------------------

Up ahead, Dean spotted the boot heels of the man in front of him just as they disappeared around the corner of the building. He pumped his own legs faster, skidding slightly due to the burst of speed and rounded the corner as well. He would have barrelled straight into the man if his reactions hadn’t been as good as they were.

Dean sprayed dirt into the air as he forced himself to stop. He was reaching for his Colt .45 before the scene even registered.  
Sam had the man trapped in the aim of his Cavalry Revolver and Dean raised his arms to get the man’s back in his sights.

“You know, running just made this easier, because now we don’t have to worry about witnesses.” Dean was slightly out of breath but the pride and satisfaction in his voice was clear as a bell.

Sam took his eyes off the man for a moment, and glanced around. Dean was right, the buildings they had chased him around had isolated the three of them surprisingly well and they were apparently free from judging eyes.

When Sam looked back at the man trapped like a rat between them, he sought out Dean’s gaze over his shoulder. There was mirth in Dean’s expression as well as a striking amount of determination. The message was clear. They couldn’t mess this up.

Holding his Colt steady, Dean approached the man’s back. Once he was close enough to touch him, he did. He grasped the man’s shoulder in his hand and pressed the barrel of the gun against his spine. At this range, a bullet would hurt them both, but something in Dean’s body language must have told the guy not to risk it.

The hand Dean had on his shoulder quickly snaked down until it found the pistol strapped to the man’s waist. He plucked the worn looking weapon out of its holster and gently placed it on the ground, all the while keeping his own weapon pressing uncomfortably into the man’s skin as a painful reminder not to move an inch.

The gun appeared to be old and well used; dropping it to the ground seemed like a bad idea. Weapons have been known to discharge unexpectedly; he couldn’t chance it happening now. Using the edge of his boot, he gingerly pushed it out of arms reach.

With their safety taken care of, Dean brought his face close to the man’s ear.

“Where is he?”

“Who?” The man’s voice showed no hint of fear. In fact, he smiled at Dean’s gruff voice in his ear. Sam frowned.

“We don’t have time for this. Your boss, ol’ yellow eyes, where is he?”

“You’ll never catch him.” The statement was simple, so simple it could have been the truth.

Dean dug his gun further into the man’s back, his patience running thin. “What makes you so sure?”

A lopsided grin spread itself across the man’s face. He was still facing Sam, and spoke while staring him in the eyes. Dean had stilled behind him.

“He told me,” the man finished after a prolonged pause, milking his words for all their worth.

Dean snorted loudly and, for the first time, an unsure expression flashed across the man’s face. The man started to turn his head in Dean’s direction, but Dean beat him to it, grabbing his shoulder once more and forcing his attention straight ahead.

“Cut the crap,” said Dean. “We’ve heard it before. You see, we have a different theory. We think he feeds this crap to his followers because we’re getting too close. Right, Sam?”

“Sort of like a defence mechanism,” supplied Sam.

Dean nodded. “Exactly.”

“That’s an interesting theory, boys,” said the man, mimicking the brother’s jovial tones.

The tension seemed to snap at this point and Dean’s gun wielding hand twitched. The man flinched at the increase in pressure against his back but kept quiet.

“I mean it. Where is he?” Dean tried again.

The man laughed, actually laughed at the repeated question. “Why would I tell you?”

Reason left Dean. Sam must have noticed the sudden change in his posture because he called out Dean’s name in warning, but Dean ignored him. He pushed the man forward and brought his leg up to kick him. The man fell to his hands and knees; Dean’s dusty boot print clearly defined on the back of his leg. He immediately tried to get back up but the Colt held him where he was, on the floor with his head tilted up, staring down the barrel of the gun.

“Because, eventually, you’ll have to tell us.”  
\------------------------------

June 2, 1873.

I’m not sure what to do with myself anymore.

For the years since it happened, I’ve tried to just carry on as normal. He told me to keep living, so I did.

But my life is no longer normal. I can’t keep doing this.

I’ve made a decision. I am going to find him. He’s a murderer and when he dies, I want it to be by my hand.  
\-------------------------------------

Dean sat by the window, looking out. The sun had yet to rise and the street below him was still empty. He had pulled the rickety table that the small room had provided up against the wall and from his seat, he was able to disassemble the Colt across its surface while still keeping one eye on the world outside.

With practised hands, he meticulously cleaned each piece before placing it back down. A row of six bullets sat to his left. They were polished to the point that they reflected the strip of moonlight that spanned across the room.

The door opened and Sam’s heavy gait entered the room. Dean spared him a brief glance before returning to his task. Sam sat down on one of the two beds that furnished the room.

“I found it,” he said, drawing Dean’s attention back over to him.

“How’d you manage that?”

“Luck, mostly.” Sam ran a hand though his hair, pushing it out of his face. His brow furrowed when he continued to talk. “It’s a graveyard.”

For a second, Dean looked thoughtful. He recalled what the man had eventually told them two towns ago, when they had trapped him between two crosshairs; supposedly, a bunch of cryptic bullshit. “Roberts 68.”

“A Mr Jackson Roberts, died 1868, buried just down the road,” said Sam, nodding his head at Dean’s look of realisation.

“So Yellow Eyes’ next meeting is going down in a graveyard? Classy,” mused Dean as he started to rebuild the weapon in front of him.

“Apparently,” said Sam.

Piece by piece, Dean’s Colt came back together. Once he had it completely reassembled, he picked up one of the shiny bullets closest to him and turned it over, checking its base one last time before he loaded it into the chamber. He repeated his actions until all six bullets were placed safely in their awaiting holes and then he calmly placed the gun back on the table. The weapon was waiting; all they needed now was their target.

“When will he be there?”

“The guy said sunrise,” answered Sam with a snort.

“Why is it always either sunrise or sunset? Why do they always have to be so damned dramatic?”

“That’s if he was telling the truth.”

Dean stood and gave the world outside one more fleeting glance before he picked up the Colt, secured it in its holster and made his way towards the door. Sam watched as Dean reached out for the handle, a strange look on his face.

“So this could be it then, Sammy? All these years and we’ve never been given a time and a place before. We’re finally going to end this.”  
Even across the room, Sam could see the tightly wound springs underneath Dean’s skin. He was ready to fly. Sam sighed and scratched at the stubble on his cheek.

Dean had taken to their new lives with ease when compared to Sam, and it had never been more apparent until this very moment. Sam didn’t want to stand up; because once he did, they would make their way to the graveyard and towards their fight. If it was up to Sam, they would be going in the opposite direction, away from the vendettas and towards normalcy.

When Sam took in the barely contained adrenaline coursing through Dean, at this moment in time, he realised, for him, this had never been the case. He looked comfortable, almost excited, about the upcoming exchange and his hands were twitching on the handle in a way that told Sam that this was an inevitability.

Dean had waited for this moment and Sam was going to be here for it, no matter what.  
\----------------------------------

May 6, 1865.

Mary is dead.

I can’t think straight. Everything is a blur. But that could just be because of the large amount of whiskey I have drunk in the past few days messing with my mind. I cannot be sure.

I thought that if I wrote everything down it might help, because every time I try to think about it, when I try to organise my thoughts, I find myself forgetting certain bits while I remember others.

What was the last thing I said to her? Why would someone do this? What actually happened to her?

Somehow, I get different answers every time I ask myself.

There are two things that stay constant throughout each memory. In every flash and every half-remembered thought, I see a man with yellow eyes. A man with yellow eyes killed my wife. A man with yellow eyes killed Mary. That, I am sure of.

The other constant is an explosion of the purest white I have ever seen. I am not sure what this means.

The only thing, from that night which I can remember with clarity, is that when things had settled down there was a knife lying on the ground beside me. Thinking about it now, I can’t recall ever seeing it before and there are strange markings over the blade that would make it pretty recognisable. I have locked it away for the time being.

I don’t know what to do now. But since that day, whenever I let my mind stray, a series of words appear in my head. They repeat over and over in a voice that I am not familiar with.

The knife can protect you against all and everything. Keep them safe.

The words always remind me that I am not the only one who was left behind following Mary’s death. My boys are still here. All I can do now is keep repeating this mantra and keep them safe.  
\---------------------------------

To Dean, the story of the yellow eyed man had always been just that, a story. Even from a young age, the quick bedtime stories he would manage to wheedle out of his father every now and then often spoke of an evil ruthless killer that had inhumanly yellow eyes. This prolonged and repeated exposure to the man meant that he eventually became the childhood adversary Dean would pretend to find and fight during humid afternoons when he was expected to entertain Sam while his father worked.

As the years passed and Dean grew older, the tale grew with him. The yellow eyed man would be brought up more and more by his father, completely out of context; the story becoming more detailed, more visceral and more believable each time. No longer was it a simple bedtime story, but had involved into a serious issue that seemed to plague his father’s mind more often than not.

It wasn’t until many years after Dean had first been told the bedtime story that his father finally told him the definitive version. And ‘told’ would probably be the wrong word use as his father had eventually spilled the final version through slurred speech and an alcohol induced haze.

Dean could still remember the exact moment his father told him; could pinpoint exactly where they were sitting, could recall perfectly which words his father slurred over and could even smell the liquor on his breath as he spoke what he believed to be the absolute truth. At the time, Dean was still unsure what to believe. His father’s words had always hit Dean hard, but with this he was unsure about how to deal with them.

According to John Winchester, the yellow eyed man, that had become such an integral, albeit unwanted, presence in all their lives, was the being responsible for his wife’s death, responsible for the death of Dean and Sam’s mother. The yellowed eye man had always been an enemy to Dean. He and Sam had caught the man countless times during their childhood but to their father, he was so much more. Growing up, Dean had always been under the impression that his mother had died in an unfortunate fire when he was very young. To suddenly be told that she was murdered by a man that he had until recently believed to be nothing but a made up childhood villain was a difficult thing to process.

And it remained a difficult thing to process for many years. Dean flitted between rationalising the whole thing by convincing himself this was just his father’s way of dealing with everything, that he was made up an imaginary evil to help him accept that fact that his wife had been taken from him unjustly, to occasionally allowing himself to simply believe the story.

Dean’s father gradually got worse and worse. It was a rare sight to find him without a tumbler in his hand and a rapidly draining bottle by his side. While his health was being steadily depleted, along with his rational mind, the obsession with the yellow eyed man only increased. It was clear to everyone that knew him; he was beginning to lose it. The choice to believe his father’s story or to dismiss it as grief inspired ramblings was beginning to choose its own outcome in Dean’s mind.

That is, until the day his father finally pulled in his last breath. The day Dean finally witnessed the yellow eyed man was the day the decision was made for him. Unbeknownst to Dean, his father had been tracking down the yellow eyed man for years, and when he finally found him, Dean was there to witness it.

The unhealthy glow to the man’s eyes was something that still stuck in Dean’s mind to this day. His jaundiced gaze was cold and harsh, a murderer’s gaze, and Dean could finally allow himself to believe that this man was actually capable of killing an innocent woman and a mother.

His father had stared down the murderer from his firm stance on the porch of their rebuilt family home, while Dean had stared over his shoulder. The yellow eyed man stood a fair distance away, scanning over their house as though it was a strangely familiar sight to him. It was at that moment that Dean realised this was because the man had been here before. He had been the one to torch their home many years earlier only to return now and find it whole again. Looking at the yellow eyed man, Dean finally understood his father’s obsession.

After a long period of staring, his father had told Dean to run. Get Sam and run. So Dean did what he had done all his life, he followed his father’s orders. Without pausing, Dean pulled himself away from his father’s back and disappeared back into the house to grab his brother. He remembered dragging his confused brother out the back of the house, unhitching their horses and riding away, all in the space of a single minute.

When Dean had felt enough time had passed, he brought his brother back to find their father dead on the dusty ground a few metres from the porch. His body was free from signs of injury and his face was more peaceful in death than Dean had ever seen it in life.

The yellow eyed man was gone once more.  
\-----------------------------

There was something very familiar about this whole situation.

Dean held the Colt up in front of him, his hands shaking very slightly as they gripped the metal tightly. His legs were spread in a shooting stance and his right leg was turned fractionally inward to keep traction on the loose dirt under his feet. Sam was standing by his side, his own gun raised in perfect symmetry.

Opposite them stood the yellow eyed man.

The sun was rising slowly, rays spreading like honey across the graveyard and the first rays of light caught the man’s face, causing the odd pigmentation in his eyes to stand out considerably. The spotlight also highlighted the man’s pasty skin in a way that made him look a lot younger than he had any right to be. Watching as a sly smile stretched across his face, Dean could have sworn the man had not aged since he had last seen him, but he chose to ignore that thought and instead wryly smiled back.

The yellow eyed man appeared to be unarmed and if he did had a weapon concealed on him somewhere he wasn’t reaching for it. Even stranger than that was the fact that he was alone. Dean had been expecting a small posse, a few extra guns at least. Or even the men that the yellow eyed man was supposed to be meeting in the middle of a graveyard at sunrise. Instead, the yellow eyed man stood alone, staring down the brothers opposite him.

Paranoia clawed at the back of Dean’s mind.

The man bared more teeth as his smile grew wider and his eyes narrowed into slits. Dean’s fingers clenched involuntarily when the man raised his empty palms into the air. The feigned innocence did not put Dean at ease.

“Don’t shoot,” whined the man through his smile, his manufactured fear toward the situation made Dean want to grind his teeth together. Seeing Sam’s unwavering hands out the corner of his eye reminded Dean to keep calm. This was finally it. They couldn’t afford to screw things up now.

“You’re a hard son of a bitch to track down,” Dean growled. “A couple of times it was like you just disappeared into thin air.”

The man lowered his hands slowly and fixed his gaze onto Dean.

“Years of practise,” he said with unabashed pride. Dean couldn’t help but scowl at him.

“Well you won’t be running from this,” he snarled as he took a step forward.

All around the three men, gravestones marked a large body count over the years. Some were more weathered than others; while a few could only be recognised by hastily tied together bits of wood. The wooden grave markers had the names and dates gouged deeply into their surfaces by people who obviously cared enough to bother.

Two rows back from where Dean and Sam had been hiding in wait for the yellow eyed man to appear stood an old gravestone. Many years of being subjected to the elements had caused the engraving to decay and although some of the words could still be deciphered with great effort the name ‘Roberts’ stood out clearly.

For what felt like a long stretch of time, Dean, Sam and the yellow eyed man stared each other down. The image of his father, the last time Dean had seen him alive, appeared in his mind. Except, this time, Dean wasn’t sheltered behind his father’s back, he was standing before the man his family had been hunting for a mass of decades.

Déjà vu swept through Dean so fiercely that he found himself holding his breath. A memory of his mother took over and he suddenly remembered a story she had told him when he was younger. She had always been an uncommonly superstitious woman, believing in the stranger sides to every story, and one of the things that had always remained in Dean’s mind was that whenever you passed a graveyard, you should hold your breath. Any restless spirits that might be close would not be able to sense you if you stifled your breathing and hid the fact that you were a part of the living world. Dean twisted his foot into the dirt, wondering how many, if any, spirits were watching this showdown happen over their resting place. He even entertained the idea that a deafening gunshot would probably bring most of them wailing to the surface.

Stark images of his father and bittersweet memories of his mother brought Dean back to the present. Sam was giving him a worried look out the corner of his eye, his brow furrowed more than usual, as he kept his gun trained on their enemy. While the yellow eyed man had lost interest in them both and was staring, what looked to be wistfully, up into the sky. Dean’s blood boiled under his skin. Revenge. He had never wanted something so much.

Dean lowered his gun to his side. He then followed the yellow eyed man’s lead and tipped his head back to gaze at the sky. The sun was almost up already and the view was mostly blue. Their parents were up there somewhere, Dean just hoped that they had a good view. He didn’t want them to miss this.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for years,” Dean started, trying to keep his voice measured and calm. It was difficult; emotion still bled through, but it didn’t make him weak it just made him feel vindicated. “This is for our parents, you yellow eyed son of a bitch.”

Dean took two swift steps forward, brought his arm up smoothly and squeezed the trigger, all in one fluid motion. He barely registered the sound of the gunfire but he felt the weapon snap back and the burning heat from the small collision of metal against metal.

The bullet struck the yellow eyed man just above one of his sickly eyes and for a second afterwards he just stood there, face blank and unresponsive. Then, as though a puppeteer had just cut his strings, his body crumpled and he fell to the ground with a thud.

Smoke drained out the end of the Colt in Dean’s hand and he took a shaky breath, the gravity of the situation suddenly hitting him, as he unsteadily placed the Colt back in its holster. His fingers were primed to repeat the action of firing over and over again until he was sure the monster was finished, but he held the urge back.

“So that’s it. We finally got him,” said Sam, his voice disbelieving.

Dean moved to face his brother fully, turning his back on the dead man in the process and then surprised himself by smiling at Sam’s genuine expression. He looked almost happy and that made Dean realise just how much that made him happy.

“I guess.” Dean felt tears prickling in his eyes and he brought up a powder burnt hand to rub them away. He felt like crying but his face was beginning to hurt from how hard he was smiling. At least Sam seemed to understand how he was feeling as they were both grinning goofily while standing over a corpse.

“He’s back where he belongs now, Dean,” Sam finally said, his tone turning sombre.

“I still think even Hell is too good for that bastard,” Dean added with his usual gruffness.

“I guess that’s why they didn’t want me.”

Both Dean and Sam spun around, weapons raised once again, when an unwelcome familiar voice joined them. They watched, frozen on the spot, as the yellow eyed man picked himself up off the ground and began to dust himself down. From the expression on his face, he seemed to be more annoyed at the dirt on his clothes than he did about the gaping bullet wound in his forehead that was still dribbling blood down his face.

“What the hell are you?” Sam growled at the man who had just cheated death right in front of them but, in answer, the yellow eyed man just sardonically smiled.

Dean was at a loss. When he shot people they usually didn’t get straight back up again. He didn’t know how to deal with someone, or better yet, something that just refused to die. In the back of Dean’s mind, in some small area that was still functioning at full capacity, he couldn’t help but think that a graveyard suddenly felt like a very fitting place for their showdown. He just wished he knew what to do now.  
The yellow eyed man finished patting himself down and then turned his heavy gaze onto the brothers. As he stared, he absent-mindedly swiped an arm across his forehead, cleaning most of the blood away in one motion. Then, as the brothers watched, the skin rapidly began to stitch itself back together. In a blink of an eye and through the glare of the early morning sun, the man’s head was completely unblemished again, as though Dean had never fired a shot. Dean risked a glance down at his hand just in case but the powder burns were still there as evidence.

All Dean had wanted was revenge. Revenge for his parents. Even revenge for Sam. But he couldn’t even do that right. The yellow eyed man was still there and most likely pissed at the men who had chased him across countless towns and finally shot him in the face.

“You Winchesters are stubborn, that’s for sure. Your Dad, he was the same, although he had better aim.” Yellow eyes pointed lamely at the middle of his forehead and sent Dean a patronising look. “But just like him, you just can’t seem to get the basics right.”

Dean felt a bit silly pointing a gun at a man who was evidently impervious to its bullets, but he would feel even worse if he lowered it, he wasn’t an idiot. The itch to the pull the trigger was back again as well, listening to this man talk about his father was tugging at the last bits of his resolve. He may come back to life again but it definitely looked like he could feel pain as the bullet tore through his brain. That was almost enough encouragement for Dean.

“You can’t kill me,” the man continued. Any other time and Dean would have taken this as a challenge, but now it was just fact, clear and true. “God knows your family has tried enough, but I guess you two are just as bull-headed as your father. Though, I should remind you where that got him, believing he could beat me.”

Yellow eyes took a step forward; both Dean and Sam took an equal step back. Neither one lowered their guns.

“Well, if you’re all so dead set on killing me, I suppose I should return the favour. Let’s see, that’s two down already. You guys are falling behind,” teased the man.

He took another step closer and held his hands up in a placating gesture. Dean already knew he was going to hate whatever came out of his mouth.

“So, as I’m feeling in a generous mood today, I’m going to give you two a head start. Don’t worry; this is going to be fun.” It was clear that yellow eyed man was deadly serious despite his jovial tone and choice of words.

Dean’s heart plummeted as he knew it would.

Then the yellow eyed man suddenly slammed his head backwards as though a hand had just gripped a handful of hair and ripped. His mouth opened in a scream but instead of sound pouring out, a black stretch of smoke billowed out into the sky. To Dean, the sight was endless but in reality the smoke eventually disappeared and the body once again dropped to the ground.

The brothers watched for a moment, neither one daring to make the first move. The body was still and it had fallen in a way that left its deathly pale face staring in their direction. The eyes were no longer yellow but a dull lifeless brown, their gaze unfocused and glazed like a dead man.

Just when Dean had worked up enough motivation to step closer to the body, something else stopped him in his tracks. A red welt began to grow out of nothing on the man’s face, just above one of his eyes. Where the skin was clear the second before, a bullet wound materialised and blood dribbled out onto the graveyard floor. Watching the man die a second time, Dean wondered just how many times the man had been through this. Is this what his father saw just before he died?

“What the hell was that?” Sam spluttered while finally lowering his gun.

Dean risked a glance away from the body of the yellow eyed man to send a wild eyed look at his brother.

“I have no idea.”

“Is he…Do you think he’s actually dead?” Sam warily approached the heap on the ground.

Dean itched to throw out his arm, to stop Sam getting any closer, but it would have been hypocritical because he was also stepping closer, peering down suspiciously.

“I’m not sure.” Dean looked up in the direction the smoke had gone. “What the hell just happened?” He moaned loudly, more to himself than at Sam. There was a pause and then Sam spoke again.

“What do you think he meant by giving us a head start?” he asked.

Dean felt his shoulders slump in resignation. He couldn’t even be sure if he had finally gotten revenge. The feeling of relief he had felt earlier, finally dropping the man they had chased for what felt like a lifetime, was almost choking him now. The murderer had gotten away and Dean didn’t know how to fight a man that defied all conventional human logic.

His eyes were prickling again, this time for a completely different reason.

“He’s still out there somewhere, isn’t he?” Sam said, clearly reluctant to even propose the idea.

“I think so,” Dean answered.

 


	2. Chapter 2

They had been tailing the yellow eyed man for a long time and after a while the brothers had stopped pinpointing where they were exactly. What town they were in now or how far they had travelled; such trivial things no longer mattered, the important thing was finding him.  
But now, now that was all they had.

They had both waited silently in the graveyard, watching the body for any signs of movement. It was Sam who eventually said he had had enough. The sun was high and soon the streets would be filling up, they needed to move now or they wouldn’t at all.

Using tools they found close by, they dug a hole in an empty patch of the graveyard and reluctantly manoeuvred the body over to it. They then piled the loose dirt back over the top and, both sweaty and drained, the brothers left.

After a bit of asking around, they discovered they were in a small town called Norwood, just south of Lawrence, their home town. The strangeness of having the showdown so close to where both their parents had lost their lives was not lost on them, but neither brother could bring themselves to really care.

It took another day of riding but then they were back in Lawrence, on recognisable ground. They had gone so long without a real home that the thought of having a place they could call their own was a little daunting, but a small part of Dean was looking forward to it.  
They rode up to the house just as it was beginning to get dark. Dean let Sam take the horses and he disappeared behind the house. Dean was left standing, unsure outside the porch. He could see the square of wood his father had stood his ground on and as much as he wanted to get inside, he also didn’t want to force himself to remember everything he was now trying to forget.

He was still lost in his own thoughts when Sam appeared back at his side. Wordlessly, they both approached their childhood home.  
\----------------------

One of the pros of having an alcoholic father was that when standing in any part of the house, it was always a certainty that a bottle was never far out of reach. It had taken Dean less than a minute to find one, fall into a chair and begin to work on it.

The house was dusty. No one had sent foot in it for at least a year and the disturbance of bodies traipsing through it now had caused the place to erupt into a dust storm. Sam had joined him for a drink at first but after one too many sneezes he called it quits and went to get some rest, leaving Dean to drown his sorrows alone.

Dean leaned forward with a grunt; he grasped weakly at the almost empty bottle on the table and refilled his glass. He had already lost count of how many he’d knocked back and was instead allowing the haze to take over. With his inhibitions lowered, Dean could feel the fatigue weighing down his every move but as hard as he tried he couldn’t seem to finally let himself go. Every time he did let his head droop, in his mind he saw the bastard in the graveyard, the bastard that was still alive.

After the fifth round of nodding off and jerking awake, Dean’s frustration hit a breaking point. He wasn’t feeling particularly drunk, so he surprised even himself when he lunged forwards for the bottle again. Once he had its familiar weight in his hand he hurled it at the closest wall. It hit with a strangely hollow thud and shattered, spraying Dean in glass and the remains of the whiskey.

Some of the glass shards cut into Dean’s skin but he barely noticed. In the background, he could also hear heavy footsteps rushing closer but he ignored those as well. He pulled himself out of the chair and approached the wall, peering at it curiously.

Sam skidded into the doorway and stared at Dean with wide eyed panic. Once he took in the fact that they were safe he relaxed, but continued to stare puzzled at Dean, who was running his hands over one of the walls.

“Dean? What are you doing?”

Dean held up his hand to silence Sam and continued to run his other hand over the wall. Occasionally he thumped against the wood with his fist and listened for the echo. He moved to the side and knocked where the splatter of the whiskey ended and the resounding noise deepened. Dean turned to grin at Sam.

“This part of the wall is hollow,” he said as though it was some kind of precious secret.

Dean dug his fingers into a crack between two areas of the wall where there was a big enough crease and pulled. With surprisingly little effort it came apart from the wall just as Sam moved closer to peer over his shoulder.

In the wall there was a small dusty alcove and resting inside was an aged leather book.

“What the hell?” said Sam as he reached over Dean and pulled the book out. He began to flick through it while Dean waited in suspense.  
Sam’s eyes widened as he hurriedly scanned each page, moving onto the next one before he could even begin to read it all. He then turned back to the first page and huffed in disbelief, there was a date and a set of initials scrawled on the page in old ink.

“Dean. I think this was Dad’s. Look at this,” gasped Sam. He tilted the book to let Dean get a better look. Sure enough, in the top left, the letters ‘J.W’ had been scratched onto the paper in a familiar hand.

“I’ve never seen it before. What the hell was it doing in the wall?”

Dean made a grab for the book and Sam reluctantly let him take it from his hands; a hurt look of betrayal was all too evident on Dean’s face and Sam slunk back to let it all sink in.

This time it was Sam that was waiting in suspense as Dean’s eyes glossed over the book. Sam watched as the line of his mouth grew thinner and his jaw clenched tighter the longer he read. The high regard that Dean held their father in was, at times a dangerous thing.

Ever the loyal son, secrets and lies were never a things Dean took to lightly.

“Look, Dean,” began Sam, his tone appeasing, “so Dad kept a journal. It’s not exactly unexpected. I mean, who else could he talk to? Getting all this shit down on paper was probably good for him.”

Dean had stopped turning the pages and was instead glaring down at a particular one. When Sam trailed off, he lifted his head to direct the glare at him. Dean looked more than betrayed, he looked pissed.

“He knew. He fucking knew and he never told me,” growled Dean as he angrily brandished the offending item. Sam held up his hands, placatory in the face of his brother’s sudden anger.

“Knew what?” he managed to say calmly.

“Dad knew it wasn’t a man and he still told us to run while he faced it down.” The words were clearly hurting Dean. “It’s all here.”  
Dean suddenly seemed to deflate, his shoulders dropped and Sam could see a slight sneer on his face.

Sam reached over and took the journal back. Not having the weight in his hands apparently unbalanced Dean and he slumped back into his seat.

“What do you mean he knew? What did he think it was?”

Dean didn’t answer and instead hunched over and cradled his head in his hands. The whiskey had reached his head and the extra fumes coming off the shattered bottle were making him dizzy.

Since his brother was ignoring him, Sam picked a page at random from the journal and began to read. The date at the top read ‘May 9, 1881’ in writing he recognised as his father’s. The words underneath filled most of the page.

In the passing weeks, I have found two demons. Neither one was the demon that I am looking for. But, nevertheless, they were helpful, despite their unwillingness to be so. They have given me a name of a town, which is at least something to go on.

As before, my bullets are useless. Although, they appear to cause damage, the bullets simply pass through. They bleed but are otherwise unharmed. I have since stopped wasting bullets on them.

Something I have found that works, though, is salt. A line of salt at any window and door and the demon can be repelled. It is not ideal for the long run but has so far saved my life more than once. A ring of salt can also create a protected area. Surrounding the house is impractical but I have lined the doors and windows in any case.

Finally, when passing a church a few days ago, I decided to let myself test a theory. I filled a flask with holy water and have kept it with me ever since. It stands to reason that it should have an effect against them. I admit I do not understand why salt affects them as it does but the water itself is blessed. I will try it the next chance I get.

The knife still remains my strongest hope.

Sam stared at the page, unsure what to think. Memories of the yellow eyed man screaming black smoke into the air flashed into his mind but contemplating demons was something else entirely. He skipped ahead a handful of pages and continued to read.

October 1, 1887.

I have been practising with the knife. So far, it has never failed. I just hope it is enough to bring him down once and for all.

I think I am getting close. I am beginning to recognise certain patterns when the yellow man gets closer. Droughts and unexplained animal deaths seem to follow wherever he goes. Strangely, it is not fires that mark his trail but missing persons.

Research has finally yielded worthwhile results. Usually, I find nothing that relates to what I need but after a thorough search and a lucky find I have found some symbols that could come in handy. Painting the symbols on a wall or the floor can trap a demon in place. I have copied the information into my journal, memorised them, and burned the book I found them in. My actions are most likely hasty but I cannot afford to give up such a large advantage.

With all the information I have now, it will not be long.

Sam slammed the journal shut, displacing dust into the air. He tossed it onto the table in front of Dean and ran both hands through his hair. Dean watched him with whiskey glazed eyes; he hadn’t even flinched at the noise the journal made as it hit the table, he appeared to be completely calm.

“Demons,” offered Sam. “Dad was tracking demons for years apparently and we never knew.”

Life returned to Dean and he sat up expectantly.

“I know. I can’t believe it,” he said breathlessly, almost reverently.

“I mean, I knew he drank a lot, but demons?” Sam continued, not catching Dean’s tone.

“What?” Dean hauled himself out of the chair to stand opposite Sam. “You don’t believe it?”

Sam spluttered inarticulately and gestured uselessly. “You do?”

“Well, yeah,” Dean shrugged, “it makes sense. Think about what we just saw, Sam. That wasn’t human. And if it wasn’t human, then a demon is as good a guess as any.”

“But it’s insane,” argued Sam.

Dean reached out and clapped his hands onto his brother’s shoulders. “Sam, I shot him and he got right back up to bitch at us. Something is wrong there.”

Sam nodded but he didn’t look convinced. He pulled away from Dean and dropped into the chair. Dean began pacing while he tried to rub the gritty, tired feeling out of his eyes.

“He said he was giving us a head start. What do you think he meant by that?” said Sam after a prolonged moment of silence.  
“I don’t know but it can’t be good.”

“I’m beginning to think we shouldn’t have gotten ourselves involved in this.”

“Maybe you’re right but it’s too late now.” Dean sounded resigned but Sam could hear the underlying rumble of adrenaline and anticipation.  
“In his journal, Dad said he had found a way to kill it, something about a knife.” Sam still sounded unsure, but with a lack of anything else to believe he was quickly latching onto the idea.

“Yeah? Well it’s a start, I guess.” Dean stopped pacing; one hand was on his hip while the other rubbed at his mouth. “I think we’ve got some reading to do, Sammy.”  
\----------------------------

_Several months later._

The church was bigger than Dean had expected. He could only vaguely remember the last and only time he had set foot in one, and even then it was only for a short amount of time, not nearly long enough for the place’s supposed grace to affect him. Now, years later, as he stood outside the church of a town he couldn’t remember the name of, he found himself surprised that he felt a little overwhelmed.

The doors were tall and despite only being made of a decaying wood, they were somehow ornate. A well-worn dirt path let up to the base of them and, as Dean stood there, he looked up at the rest of the impressive building towering over him. The church was obviously this town’s pride and joy.

Dean risked an appraising eye down at himself; he was filthy. A couple days’ worth of dirt and grime coated his clothes and running a hand over his face only elicited a scratchy rasping sound reminding him that there was a couple days’ worth of growth as well.

He almost turned away. What was he even thinking? A church was one of the last places he belonged. But something stopped him. Something made him press on, regardless of how morally wrong it felt.

True to their appearance, the large doors creaked as Dean gingerly pushed on them. He cringed and willed them stop, the disturbance bringing back the urge to turn tail and run, but they continued to creak until Dean’s, admittedly rather weak, push brought the doors open fully.

Light spilled past Dean and his outline stretched out eerily across the floor, making it halfway to the altar at the front before it stopped. The place appeared to be empty.

Dean wanted to call out, make his presence known but again a sense of morality held him back. He may be the last person to ever call on God for guidance but he still had some decency; barging in and hollering out was not something you did in a church, no matter what your faith entailed.

He stepped over the threshold and finally stood fully in the place of worship. For some stupid reason, Dean had this inane idea that doing so would make him feel different, that somehow his new life of demon hunting would mean that the yin to their new yang would also rise to a higher purpose.

But he felt nothing. He wasn’t particularly surprised.

Dean reached up and removed his hat. The heat had plastered his damp hair to his head and it caused him to feel inexplicably itchy. He ran a hand through the short strands a few times, hoping to shake the heat off and also in a probably vain attempt to make himself look even remotely respectable.

He carefully strode down the aisle, glancing at the empty pews on each side. He chose one at random and slid in; he was three rows back from the front and the distance felt about right, close enough so that it was clear he was not just ducking in away from the sun and far enough away that his reluctance to believe was made obvious.

Now all he had to do was remind himself why he was even here in the first place because, truthfully, he really wasn’t sure.

Dean let his thoughts drift to Sam, who was grabbing them a room somewhere, probably wondering where his brother had disappeared to again. He could imagine it perfectly; Sam’s indignant huffs at thinking Dean had gone off to get drunk while he was left to do the practical things, muttering to himself about how being the younger brother sucked. Dean let a small smile creep onto his face at the thought.

Except, thoughts of Sam invariably led to thoughts of their father and, in turn, thoughts of their mother. Both of their unjust deaths seemed strangely sharper while Dean sat uncomfortably on sacred ground. The fact that he could just sit here didn’t seem right, for some reason. Sure, they were doing their best to avenge their parents, but having a life while they didn’t had never felt more wrong, until this moment.  
The urge to get up and run was too much to ignore now. Seeking refuge in a church, of all places, was a stupid idea. Dean clutched at the back of the pew in front and swiftly pulled himself up.

The still open entrance meant that the place was haphazardly lit, light glinted off random objects and religious paraphernalia, but the thing that caught Dean’s eye as he hastily tried to make his escape was the man standing by the opposite set of pews. He was clearly a religious man, judging by his choice of clothing and Dean could have kicked himself for not sensing another person coming into the room. The light hit the man oddly and only one side of his face could be seen. His blue eyes and white collar stood out almost eerily compared to his dark hair and equally dark clothing.

Dean, on the other hand, must have been standing in full light because the man had obviously caught his startled expression and was stepping closer with his hands raised in a comforting gesture.

“Do you need assistance?”

The man’s voice could only be described as a growl, which surprised Dean a great deal and seemed as out of place on the man as it did for Dean to be willingly standing in a church. It took a moment for Dean to find his voice in answer.

“Ur, no, sorry preach. I was just leaving,” Dean finally managed, wincing slightly at how loud it sounded in the empty room. When the man had spoken it had just sounded deep, not loud.

“You must have come here for a reason?” The man stated diplomatically.

Dean edged his way out of the pews and both men were now standing in the aisle. Shrugging, he let a small amount of humour leak into his voice, not enough to be disrespectful but enough to hopefully convey the truth.

“Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m here. So I think I’m just going to go,” he laughed lightly.

The man didn’t return Dean’s smile, if anything his face grew even more serious. His brow furrowed ever so slightly and he cocked his head to the side. Dean had never met anyone, besides Sam, that could pull off that curious puppy dog look and on the man it even managed to look deeply serious. His laden words, however, belied the comedic expression.

“The Lord always welcomes the lost and unsure.”

He said it so gravely that Dean almost believed him.

“Yeah? Well, if it’s all the same, I still think I should get out of here,” said Dean, gesturing weakly at the door.

The man nodded his head so minutely that Dean would have missed it had the man not been making it impossible not to keep his prying gaze.

“I hope you change your mind. I’ll be waiting here when you do,” said the man.

Dean smiled back good naturedly and lifted up the hat in his hand as a half-hearted goodbye salute. He then turned away from the preacher and began walking towards the open doors. The too blue eyes of the preacher never left his retreating back.

Dean was halfway down the aisle when the front doors slammed shut so violently that it couldn’t have just been the wind, even though Dean really hoped it was just that. The warm beam of sunlight that had been spanning the floor was now gone and the church was dim, lit only by a spattering of candles around the edge of the room.

“Shit,” mumbled Dean as panic began to set in. “Not now.”

Dean quickly gave the room a once over. The building’s size was a weakness but the place seemed to be quite sturdy from the looks of it and the doors alone would require a lot of brute force to break down. He then turned to himself, patting down his legs to take inventory. His favourite knife was strapped to his thigh and the Colt was on his opposite hip, loaded and ready to go. Not that they would have any affect against what he thought was outside but just feeling their familiar weight was something of a relief.

Besides a useless gun and an equally useless knife, though, Dean was empty handed. He hadn’t thought to arm himself because he was going to a church. What kind of demons attack a church?

He ran his hands over himself again, sweeping over his jacket, desperately hoping that he would find something new this time. There was a lump in one of the pocket and when Dean pulled it out he was relieved to find a small bag containing salt. The bag was almost empty but it was something at least.

The doors suddenly lurched inwards and, for a second, Dean thought that they would not hold but they eventually shrank back into place once more. He turned back to the preacher, who was watching the doors with a slight frown.

“Do you have any salt?” demanded Dean, over the clamour.

The preacher didn’t answer and kept his eyes trained on the shuddering doors. Dean tried again, positioning himself between the man and the noise to force his eyes on him instead.

“Father, do you have any salt here? Pure salt?”

The preacher’s frown turned puzzled.

“No. I don’t think so,” he answered calmly.

“But you have holy water, surely?”

This time the preacher nodded and his eyes flickered over to a wooden basin by the doors. Dean nodded and opened the small bag of salt; he grabbed the preacher and dragged him over to the area in front of the pews. Dean then leaned down and began to pour the salt sparingly in a circle around the man. The lack of salt meant that the circle was weak but it would have to do. Once he was finished, Dean straightened back up and addressed the preacher.

“Now don’t move. Don’t leave the circle for any reason.”

The doors surged again as if they had heard his warning but the preacher only stared back at Dean. He had thought that the man would put up more resistance but he simply nodded, immediately understanding the danger they were in. Dean took a moment to thank any God that was listening for that.

With the preacher safe for the time being, Dean turned his attention to the holy water. He didn’t like the idea of getting closer to the doors but he needed something else to fight with, a ring of salt would not hold up for long.

Dean reached inside his jacket and fished out the flask he had placed there this morning. There was a small amount of whiskey left. Dean unscrewed the cap, shrugged and then downed the rest. Usually, the taste would be calming but right now it did little to nothing for his nerves.

Once the flask was empty, Dean submerged it in the wooden basin, watching as bubbles quickly rose to the surface. Dean then swirled the liquid around a bit, trying to clean the flask as best he could and then poured the contents onto the ground by his feet. Although the floor  
was made up of rough stone slabs, the layer of unavoidable dirt turned a darker colour as the water puddled on top of it.

Dean filled the flask up a second time. Hopefully the small traces of whiskey would not dilute the power of the holy water; they had never bothered to test the boundaries because it had never been a problem before. Dean definitely regretted that decision now as he made his way back to the preacher, the possibly useless flask hidden back inside his jacket.

The doors continued to rattle and shift at odd angles behind him and there were sounds resembling a hurricane surrounding the building. Dean tried his best to ignore them; it wouldn’t be long before they found a way in, although it did seem that the church’s natural resistance to evil was actually helping Dean at this point.

Not seeing any other possible plan, Dean reached for the knife strapped to his thigh. He tested the familiar weight in his hand and looked up to meet the preacher’s eyes. The man had been silent throughout all of this and, even upon seeing a knife in this stranger’s hand, he was still calm. Dean had never really met a man of God before, something about them had always unnerved him, but there was something about this one that Dean liked. The preacher had not shut down at the first sign of the unnatural and Dean knew that stance; this preacher was ready for a fight.

Dean dropped his eyes and placed the knife over his cupped palm. As he pulled the blade sideways he felt it slice through the layers of his skin and blood immediately welled to the surface.

“What are you doing?” The preacher’s deep voice surprised Dean as much as it did the first time he had heard it, and when he looked up he expected to see outrage on his face or at least disgust but instead he just looked curious. Well, that was strange.

“Protective wards,” Dean answered as though it was obvious what he was doing. “They need to be drawn in blood.”

The man tilted his head again. Dean had to turn his back on the preacher to hide his smile.

Dean worked quickly on the sigils, his hands sweeping in practised arcs and lines on the stone floor hidden between two pews. He placed one on either side of the room, hoping that the created wall would be enough to keep the demons at a distance.

He was just finishing the second when all the noise stopped. Dean smoothly stood straight and ready, his still bleeding hand held at his side, endlessly dripping life onto the stone floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the preacher take a step forward. Dean immediately held up his hand to stop him.

“Don’t move. Not yet,” he said with his eyes trained on the doors. The preacher settled back into the centre of the circle of salt without saying a word.

They both watched the doors in silence until, with a sickening crunch, the wood splintered and flew inwards. The unhinged doors flew down the aisle and skidded on their momentum, only stopping at the boundaries that Dean had created as traces of the demon’s power still thrummed through the wood.

In the now open doorway stood three men. Each was of equal height and build; judging by their clothes Dean guessed they were ranchers, they probably came from the ranch he and Sam had passed on the way into the town. The rancher in front, the one clearly in charge, took one passing sweep of the church with his blackened eyes before he stepped into the building. The action was done very deliberately and with a plastered on grin aimed at Dean.

“Part of you was still hoping we’d be stopped by this, wasn’t it?” The demon spoke jovially with its stolen voice. “Well, I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this but,” he paused to gesture all around himself, “all this, it means nothing. Sacred ground? It can’t stop us.”

Dean clenched his bleeding fist and tucked the injured hand into his jacket pocket as naturally as he could manage.

“A man can hope,” smiled Dean with an accepting nod.

“Then this is the place to do it, I guess,” said the demon.

Dean eased himself out from between the pews to stand back in the aisle, using his body to draw attention away from the presence of the preacher. He was outside the ward and the preacher was still the safest inside the salt circle.

The two lackeys trailed after the rancher as he walked further into the church. Dean took an equal number of steps backwards, hoping that he could pass the boundary before they noticed, but they were quicker than Dean had expected.

A feeling of constriction, like his lungs had forgotten how to breathe, wrapped around his chest; an invisible force not unlike the pressure of thick ropes stopped him from backtracking any further.

“Not so fast, Freckles.”

Dean suppressed the urge to fight and writhe, knowing the satisfaction it would provide his captives, and instead looked up from his chest to meet the rancher’s dark eyes.

“Can’t have you crossing that line, can we?”

Dean had a split second to register the slight upturn of the rancher’s mouth before he felt weightless. The next sensation he felt was the harsh impact of his shoulder hitting the wall of the church and then the cold stone floor on his face when his battered body crumpled.

By the time Dean pulled himself to his feet, shook out his disorientation and then faced the aisle again, the rancher and his two henchmen had crowded close to the sigil built wall. While the henchmen busied themselves testing its limits, the rancher turned his attention to the preacher, who, whilst still in the circle, was staring at Dean in apprehension.

“A man of the cloth, huh? You know, my father would love the irony of this,” mused the rancher, drawing the preacher’s eyes away from Dean. “How about it, Padre? You interested?”

The preacher’s eyes turned steely. The rancher laughed. Dean began to wonder if maybe he should have been the one hiding in the circle of salt while the preacher fought against the demons. With a glare like that maybe he would have been able to hold his ground instead of being flung across the room like a ragdoll.

“The thing about us, though, is that we don’t need permission, just the opportunity,” continued the rancher. “Think about that the next time you’re praying to your Father.”

The demons were distracted, thought Dean. The preacher had captured the attention of the rancher wholeheartedly and the others were still busy with the wall. Dean looked down at the blood drying on his hands and started to shuffle back towards the gaping opening to the church. If he could finish with the sigils before they turned back to him then he could gain a slight advantage. Hopefully the preacher would be able to hold them off long enough.

“You do know what we are, right Father?” The rancher tilted his head in question.

“I can guess,” answered the preacher, his voice dripping with malice. The disgust just made the rancher smile wider.

“Say it,” he ordered.

The preacher’s eyes flickered up over the rancher’s shoulders towards Dean, who was slowly creeping around the edge of the room.

“Evil,” said the preacher after a pregnant pause.

Sardonic laughter bubbled out of the rancher’s throat as the preacher’s answer struck him the wrong way.

“Try again. Be more specific,” he laughed.

A wooden rosary was wound around the preacher’s wrist and before he spoke again he snagged the dangling cross with his fingertips and pulled it into his palm. His fingers closed over it; the familiar touch was a comfort.

“Demons,” tried the preacher a second time.

When the rancher’s smile disappeared, the preacher knew his second guess had been better.

As Dean worked silently on his third sigil, he strained his ears to hear the conversation going on across the room. Catching the word ‘demon’ out of the preacher’s throat, he risked a surprised look. Maybe the preacher was more aware of his surroundings than Dean had given him credit for. Maybe that was why the preacher seemed so calm. For the first time since he had set foot inside this church, Dean found comfort in the preacher. This could have been going a lot worse, but at least the preacher was keeping calm.

Dean quickly finished the third sigil and judged the distance he would have to sneak to start the fourth. He was doubtful he could make it across the room undetected. His left hand was throbbing in constant pain as blood continued to well to the surface while his right was stiff from being used as a makeshift paintbrush. He waited a moment longer, until the rancher took a daring step closer to the salt ring and the preacher inside that was amusing him so far.

Dean was just about to make a break for it when another shadow fell across the gaping doorway. The familiar outline of his towering brother blacked out the sunlight, and if that wasn’t enough to alert the demons, his loud shouting made him impossible to miss.

“Dean? Are you in here?”

Sam appeared from around the corner and stood completely unaware in the doorway. Dean would have laughed at the shocked look on his face, when he spotted the four men, if he hadn’t already been cursing him under his breath.

Now that his cover was effectively blown, Dean made a dash for the other side of the room. As he passed Sam, he made sure to slap a hand across his shoulder, the one without the oozing knife wound, to quickly snap him back into action.

“They’re demons, Sammy. I hope you’ve finally memorised that exorcism,” supplied Dean as he passed Sam in a blur.

“What?” answered Sam, sending panicked looks between Dean and the other men. He began patting down his jacket, searching for what Dean had dubbed his ‘cheat sheet’, as he followed Dean. “Have you seen how long it is?”

“Well, we’re shit out of luck here, Sam, so remember it,” grunted Dean. Once he reached the other side of the church, he dropped to his knees and began working on the fourth and final sigil. Hopefully, Sam’s arrival would garner enough attention to keep both him and the preacher safe for a moment longer, at least until he could finish.

“Ah, the second Winchester. I was wondering when you’d show up. Attached at the hip is what he said and I guess he was right,” smiled the rancher, finally turning his back to the preacher and facing Sam. “Did you know he’s been watching you?”

Sam’s quick hands stole the Revolver from his hip and aimed it at the talking man. The search through his pockets was quickly forgotten.  
“I guess it’s only fair,” answered Sam. “We’ve been tracking him for years now.”

“I think he’s surprised you’re both still alive. I know I am,” added the rancher while he started a slow but sure journey over to the brothers, leaving his lackeys by the preacher. “He wants to see how far you’ll get, how much you’ll sacrifice, how much you’re willing to lose before he kills you.”

“Is that why he sends you guys after us? You’re here to scare us. Push us to our limits?” said Sam.

The rancher laughed. The sound echoed around the church walls.

“Oh no, I volunteered,” he smiled, showing off a set of dirty teeth. “I’ve wanted to throw your brother around for a while now.” The rancher turned his attention to where Dean was crouched behind a pew adding the last lines to the sigil. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing down there Dean. All you’re doing is wasting blood.”

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat and rose up from behind the pew; the fourth sigil was finished. He locked eyes with the rancher while trying his best not to let his uncertainty show.

“You can’t kill us. Trapping us like this is pointless. Exorcisms take us back downstairs, that’s all. It’s nothing but an inconvenience. If anything, you’re saving us a trip.”

“So stop bitching,” sighed Dean.

He pulled a stained handkerchief out of one of his pockets and clumsily wrapped his hand up. Sam lowered his Revolver and made a gesture to help but Dean waved him off with an irritated look. Once his hand was dealt with, he trekked around the edge of the church and made his way back to the preacher’s side.

He stared at Dean with his too blue eyes but didn’t say anything, not even when Dean told him he could come out of the circle. From there, he shouted back over to Sam.

“You remembered that exorcism yet?”

Sam blinked and then continued his search patting down his pockets.

“I think I’ve got most of it. But I don’t like doing it without the words right in front of me,” Sam admitted to the room.

“Try.”

Even from across the church, Dean knew Sam was rolling his eyes.

“Okay, um, how did it start? …Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…”

Sam’s unsure voice carried around the church. All eyes were watching him as he spoke Latin, words spilling out of his mouth in a strange stilted rhythm. So far, Dean could see no change in the demons.

“This man is your brother?”

Dean turned to face the rasping voice, confused by the sudden question. Standing by his side, the preacher’s brow was furrowed as he waited for an answer.

Unsure, Dean muttered a short, “Yeah.”

“Older?”

Dean scoffed and shook his head. “No, younger.”

The preacher nodded in understanding as he regarded Sam once again. “He is very tall.”

Dean laughed and scratched at the stubble on his face. “He’s a giant.”

“…cessa decipere humanas creaturas…” continued Sam, unaware of the conversation going on across the room, his words only gaining in confidence and speed.

It was then that Dean started to notice a change in the demons, or at least in one of them. The rancher had turned away from Sam as he had started to recite the exorcism and was now facing Dean and the preacher. As Sam started a new verse, the rancher twitched.  
His face immediately tensed as though he was in excruciating pain and he brought up his clenched fists to push against his temples. Dean could see his lips moving, muttering words quietly to himself or maybe to a voice only he could hear.

As charged Latin words continued to fill the church, the rancher’s eyes snapped open and up, zeroing in on the preacher. Instead of a weary accepting look, there was malice in his eyes. One hand still clutched at his head but the other was stretched out towards the man at Dean’s side.

“It’s you,” he snarled, sounding almost surprised as he appeared to recognise something in the preacher.

Dean felt the preacher tense, where their shoulders touched, under the rancher’s sudden shift in attention. For the first time, Dean saw uncertainty in the preacher; he held an expression verging on frightened.

“He’s been looking for you,” continued the demon. His voice was pitched low and his eyes were dark pits.

There was something about the demon’s expression, the sudden shift in attitude and his utmost belief in his words, that made Dean throw an arm out to his side. The preacher had stepped out of the salt circle when Dean had told him to, but with a gentle commanding push from Dean’s arm he retreated back inside.

“He’s got something special planned for you.” The rancher had approached the limits of the sigil created wall as he addressed the preacher.

“…Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris…” recited Sam on the opposite side of the church. The Latin appeared to be no longer affecting the demons; it was as if the rancher’s sudden interest in the preacher was more than enough to keep them grounded.

It was then that Dean remembered the flask he’d hidden away in his jacket.

“Say your final prayers, Father, because we’re coming after you next.”

The rancher deliberately emphasised the word ‘Father’, stretching the title until it became clear he was mocking it. Dean hated the smug expression on the rancher’s face and felt it needed to be wiped away.

He pulled the flask out, unscrewed the top and moved into the rancher’s line of sight. Over the demon’s shoulder, Dean could see that Sam was nearing the end of the exorcism and realised he had to act fast. He raised the flask until the sunlight glinted off the metal, catching the rancher’s eye in the process.

“Make sure to tell your boss that we’re done playing.” With that said, Dean swiped the flask through the air, whipping the demon with a face full of holy water. Immediately, the demon flinched. The water sizzled and smoked where it came in contact with skin and the rancher hissed in pain.

Their timing was perfect. While the rancher recoiled, Sam reached the last line of the exorcism. As soon as the words “audi nos” left Sam’s mouth, all three demons trapped in the square Dean had created froze. Then, in unison, their mouths dropped open and a huge cloud of black smoke began to congregate in the air above them. The cloud swirled for a moment, discharging an odd air of static electricity before it jerked to life and shot out of the church. The once inhabited bodies of the ranchers dropped heavily to the ground and in their wake the church was left in an uncomfortable silence.

It was Dean who eventually broke the silence. With a look bordering on betrayal, Dean spun around to face the preacher he had just moments before been rather impressed by. There were already too many questions he was dying to ask but only one that was important enough to be first.

“Just who the hell are you?”

In answer, the preacher drew his mouth into a thin grim line, tilted his head down and looked up at Dean through his eyelashes. He shook his head but didn’t say a word.


	3. Chapter 3

“You can’t just kidnap a man of the cloth, Dean,” hissed Sam, while he sent a measuring look over his shoulder to where the preacher in question sat calmly by the window of their rented room.

The preacher glanced up at Sam; he frowned at their hushed tones but otherwise remained still. Dean grabbed his brother’s shoulder and pulled them both further away from the man whilst angling their backs to hide their conversation. There was something about the collared man’s stare that made Dean uneasy.

“It’s not really kidnap if he came with us willingly,” he answered smugly.

“You know what I mean,” said Sam, sounding tired and reluctant to pander to Dean’s games. “It’s not safe for him to be here. We should have left him at the church.”

When no one had been willing to speak in the church, Dean had taken over. Using some of the remaining holy water and an already soiled handkerchief, he had wiped away or at least smeared the sigils until they were unrecognisable messes.

After that, he had broken the salt circle with the side of his boot and checked to see if Sam was okay. When he had done everything he could he turned back to the priest; the battered down door and the litter of unconscious bodies would have to be left behind.

The final words from the demon’s mouth before he had smoked out were still playing through Dean’s head and he knew then that they couldn’t leave the preacher here. So Dean had ordered him to come with them, not even bothering look back to see if the man was following as he stepped around the bodies, over the door and out into the sun.

Now, they were back in their dark, claustrophobic room overlooking the main street; two men and a preacher. There was a punch line to this line of thought, but Dean had yet to think of it.

He roughly shook his head back and forth to ward away his straying thoughts and instead tipped his head to the side, gesturing to their odd man out.

“Do you really think he would have been safer if we’d left him out there?” Dean argued. “You heard what that demon said. I don’t how, why or when but he’s somehow involved in all this and I’m not going to just let him get himself killed until we know why.”

Sam slowly nodded. He then pulled away from their impromptu huddle and began pacing the short distance of wooden flooring that the room had provided.

Dean made a mental note, while watching his brother cross the room in a few simple steps, to stop paying for these rooms. There was barely enough room for the two threadbare cots, let alone three men who were prone to pacing and plotting. Maybe a few nights camping under the stars would be good for them; it would certainly keep their pockets from getting any lighter than they already were.

Sam reached the window, halting for a second by the preacher’s feet and then turning sharply on the spot to re-tread over his short path. Dean would have continued to watch his brother aimlessly pace but he could feel the unsettling sensation of eyes burning into the side of his head.

Any normal man would have turned away, averted their eyes and pretended that they were not staring, but when Dean met the preacher’s gaze nothing happened. The man just stared back, looking like a child who was waiting to be scolded by its parents for something it didn’t understand it had done wrong.

“Okay, first things first. What’s your name?” Dean began, making Sam stop and face the preacher. Without looking away, the man answered.

“Castiel.”

Dean repeated the name, testing its taste on his tongue.

“Just Castiel? What, no last name?”

The preacher, Castiel, ducked his head and appeared to be thinking deeply about what he was going to say next. Once he had decided, he returned to staring unnervingly at Dean and Dean alone, Sam disregarded in the periphery of his vision.

“I do not know. I do not remember,” Castiel spoke almost reverently.

Dean’s mouth formed a ‘oh’ shape until his face collapsed into a look of confusion. Sam brushed past him and sat down on a corner of one of the cots. He looked enraptured already and Dean scowled at his brother’s predictability. Apparently, being ignored did nothing to dampen his rampant curiosity.

“How can you not remember?” Sam tried first and then paused to restart when he had rethought his strategy and his need to be polite. “Did something happen to you? Did the demons do something to you and that’s why you don’t remember?”

Castiel turned his sharp blue stare on Sam instead and Dean took a deep breath in relief.

“I do not remember,” repeated Castiel in an apologetic tone this time.

“Well, what’s the first thing you do remember?” Sam prompted Castiel.

For a moment, Dean thought Castiel had dropped his head in thought again, or even in prayer knowing what the man was, but when he moved closer he quickly realised that he wasn’t speaking to God but staring intently at his hands splayed out over his knees.

“The church found me four years ago.” Castiel spoke as though he was years older than he looked; his gravelly voice was surprisingly fitting for what Dean realised was going to be a long tale. “And I don’t just mean religion. Members of the church literally found me unconscious in the dirt just north of here. My hands were coated in blood that couldn’t have been mine and I was dehydrated to within an inch of my life and, although they had faith, there was very little they could do for me.”

Castiel looked up, face blank as he calmly described how close he had once come to death. He wasn’t fidgeting in his seat and his voice was completely level. This strange, almost detached, retelling just didn’t sit right with Dean, who was feeling more and more uncomfortable the longer the preacher spoke.

“However, I surprised the other Fathers by somehow pulling through. For the first few days my speech was limited to merely groaning and whispering for water and it wasn’t until later, when I had begun to regain my strength that the other Fathers realised just how clueless I really was.

“Even to this day I couldn’t tell you how I came to be in that state, just that from that day onwards, I was basically a blank slate with no memory of anything besides my name. I’m suppose I’m grateful I have that much at least.”

Castiel paused for a moment and Dean took that as a chance to chime in.

“Okay, so you woke up as Mr Clueless and the church took you in? Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would they care so much about a man they didn’t know but who clearly has some sort of suspicious background?”

For the first time, Castiel looked genuinely surprised and even slightly puzzled. He levelled an expression on Dean that could only be described as indulgent.

“You’re asking me why the Fathers decided to help a defenceless, dying man with little to no memory and nowhere to go?”

Dean had the decency to look sheepish, at least, at Castiel’s carefully measured question. He ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering how he could have worded his thoughts better.

“When you say it as blunt as that of course it’s going to sound bad, but you know what I mean,” said Dean, while glancing at Sam to get some back up. Sam sighed and rolled his eyes in answer.

“What my devoid of tact brother was trying to say was, don’t you find it a bit suspicious that the fathers then kept you around for so long even after not knowing who you are and what you might have done in the past?”

Dean nodded rapidly and gestured at Castiel; his skilfully haphazard hand gestures meaning to showcase that what Sam had said was what he had been meaning.

“Yeah,” he smiled.

Castiel’s face hardened and his resolve had clearly doubled.

“Those men saved my life and took me in without hesitation, whereas most people would have left me to die. I don’t owe them questions, I owe them gratitude.”

Both Sam and Dean had trouble coming up with a response to that, so they didn’t bother. They simply unsubtly changed the subject and moved on.

“Why weren’t you more surprised to find actual demons in your church?” asked Dean, remembering how easily the preacher had faced the rancher without shrinking back in fear.

“The other Fathers told me about the evils in the world,” Castiel sighed heavily. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Thinking back on it, I still don’t really know if they were simply trying to warn me or if they were in fact attempting to lecture me. Maybe they didn’t trust me.”

“So you’ve seen their kind before?” asked Sam.

“No. Never. I’ve heard many stories over the years but today was the first time I’ve ever seen them with my own eyes.”

Dean huffed in annoyance and finally dropped onto the other cot, today’s exertions finally taking their toll.

“Then what the hell did they mean? All this ‘something special’ bullshit? They were talking to you as if they knew you,” he groaned towards the ceiling, head lolling back with exhaustion.

“I must admit I’m as clueless about their words as you are, I’m afraid.”

“Just great.”

The room was silent. Outside, there was a hushed air of daily routine and business but it wasn’t loud enough to carry up and into the room.

Surprisingly, it was Castiel who broke the quiet atmosphere.

“The demons seemed to be rather focused on you two, though,” he said as uncertainly as his strange voice would allow him. “What exactly are your connections to the demons?”

Dean sought out Sam’s eyes from where he was sprawled out on the bed. Sam shrugged but Dean narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want the inevitable looks of pity that would follow the truth.

“We hunt them,” said Sam, as though the idea of hunting down what was essentially evil incarnate was a completely normal line of work. “Well, one in particular.”

“Why would you ever want to seek them out?”

“Well, we don’t want to. It’s just…” Sam trailed off weakly.

“We have to,” finished Dean, effectively ending the conversation.

Surprisingly, Castiel nodded as if he understood. Dean begrudgingly thanked him in his mind for not enquiring further into the matter.

Abruptly, Sam stood up and approached the door. With his hand on the handle, he turned to smile politely at Castiel and then addressed Dean.

“Can I talk to you? Outside?”

Once the door had been shut behind them, Sam smiled again. Dean was immediately suspicious.

“I think you were right. We should take him with us.”

Dean opened and closed his mouth wordlessly a few times before he finally managed to find something to say.

“Wait a minute, Sam. I never said he should come with us permanently” he argued, already a bit unnerved with the idea of having the preacher join them for good. He appreciated the guy’s ability to calmly accept the weirdness of the world but that didn’t mean he fine with the preacher tagging along with them indefinitely. “It just didn’t feel right to leave the guy there after that.”

Sam shook his head, that stupid goofy grin still on his face.

“No. Think about it, Dean. The demons definitely knew him. They seemed to want him dead as much as they want us dead, which says a lot. He said himself that he has no memories of what happened to him four years ago and that’s right around the time Dad died. It can’t just be a coincidence. He’s involved in this somehow.”

Sam was pacing as his brain worked swiftly and Dean fixed his long-legged gait with a calculating eye. He had to admit, everything did fit together rather well; Sam’s argument was hard to refute, but maybe that was the problem. It was all a little too perfect.

Dean wasn’t in the habit of visiting churches in the towns they rode through. Today had been a fluke; a variation in their normal routine. What exactly were the chances that they’d stumble on a man that was somehow linked with them and their admittedly strange lives? Pretty unlikely, Dean wagered.

He still wasn’t completely sold on the idea.

“How do we even know that this coincidence is a good thing?” countered Dean, halting Sam in his steps. “It wouldn’t be the first time those dicks have tried to mess with us.”

“I guess we can’t be sure,” admitted Sam, albeit reluctantly. “But, come on Dean, how often does something like this happen?”

“All the more reason to be suspicious.”

The brothers stared at each other, Sam already sure of his decision and Dean still on the fence. Sam raised his eyebrows in question and Dean sighed. Sam knew he had already won.

Trying to stifle a smug grin, Sam pushed open the door to their room and stepped back inside. Dean followed slowly behind with his head held high; just because he wasn’t completely sold on the idea didn’t mean that Castiel had to know.

Castiel was sitting exactly where they had left him, only turning his head in their direction when Sam’s heavy boot steps announced their re-entrance.

“We think you should come with us,” announced Sam brightly.

Immediately, Castiel looked panicked.

“For what reason?”

“We think you might be in danger. You’d be safer if you came with us,” Sam continued, toning down his voice until it conveyed his solemnity.

Hearing this, the panic quickly drained and Castiel was left mirroring Sam’s expression.

“I don’t know who or what you two think I am, or what kind of life you think I lead, but there is really no need for such concern. It was you who brought the demons to the church not me.”

“Regardless of that, they still knew who you were,” Sam tried again.

“They could have been lying,” Castiel reasoned. “They knew their time was up and wanted to scare me, maybe shake my faith a little before they went.”

Dean found himself agreeing with Castiel. It definitely sounded like something they would do. Hell, they had done similar things to both of them throughout the years. It didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Sam, however, wasn’t backing down.

“But what if you’re wrong? You’d be putting yourself through a lot of risk for an assumption.”

Finally, Castiel seemed to deflate. His shoulders dropped in submission and his hands loosened into a gesture of defeat. When he looked up, his eyes were missing their steely assurance.

“I do not want to leave my home,” he exhaled weakly.

Straight away, Dean understood. It was like a light had flicked on in his brain and he suddenly recognised what he was looking at; that world weary look that you had no control over, Dean knew it only too well. He knew what it was like to be forced out of the place you had the most memories of and he knew what he had wanted to say to the person forcing him. Looking at Castiel, sharing that same expression, Dean realised how important it was to get him out of there.

“You’ll regret it if you stay. Sooner or later,” Dean offered slowly and sincerely, while making sure he had Castiel’s full attention.  
Sam was mildly shocked to hear Dean attempting to help, but quickly hid it before either man could notice.

“You may not care about yourself but you obviously care about the church,” Dean continued. “If you stay and the demons come back, it’s their lives that you would be putting in danger. You saw them today, they don’t care if you’re innocent or not.”

Castiel nodded in understanding and even possibly in agreement.

“We’re not forcing you to come with us. It’s completely your choice,” Sam added.

And then there was silence again. Sam spent the time nervously glancing between Dean, who was now staring intently at Castiel, and Castiel, who was staring intently at a spot on the wall over Dean’s shoulder. When Castiel spoke again, Sam was almost sure that they had lost him.

“I cannot just leave them,” Castiel said diplomatically and Dean sighed noisily at the statement but quickly held his breath when Castiel carried on. “I would have to let them know I was leaving.”

“Of course,” answered Sam quickly before Dean could have the chance to say something that might change the preacher’s mind.

Like liquid, Castiel then rose gracefully from his chair, crossed the room and held his hand out to Sam. Sam stared at for a second, completely forgetting any remnant of social grace he had left, but shook his head and grasped the offered hand in a strong grip before Castiel could take it away.

Once they were finished, Castiel turned his hand to Dean. Dean didn’t hesitate; he just clapped his hand to Castiel’s and held it in place.  
“I hope I’m not making a mistake,” said Castiel, voice deep and grave.

“Honestly…” as Dean trailed off he shrugged his shoulders, jostling their clasped hands. Dean smiled and was surprised to find a small, almost invisible smile tugging at the corner of Castiel’s lips. “We’ll give you the night. Meet us tomorrow, early, just out front.”

Castiel nodded and then he was gone, shutting the door behind him softly and without a sound.

“He’s linked to this somehow, Dean. We just need to find out how.”

“He seems like a nice guy. I don’t want to get him killed,” Dean reminded Sam as he dropped onto one of the cots again.

“Well, he has a better chance with us than he does on his own,” was Sam’s argument as he also settled onto the other cot.

Dean would have argued back about the safety of travelling with two demon hunters but he fell asleep before the words could form.  
\--------------------------

The unpleasant aroma of horses permeated the early morning air and, when Dean yawned for what must have been the one-hundredth time, he came to the decision that he hated mornings. The streets were empty and resembled a ghost town with its dusty floor, dark wooden buildings and eerie silence and as Dean used his hitched up horse as a means to stand up straight, he came to the decision that he really hated mornings.

A chunk of bread appeared in front of his eyes and Dean blinked uselessly for a few seconds. Once his brain had processed that it was indeed just bread, he let his eyes travel up the arm holding it to find Sam struggling to hold back laughter.

“Breakfast,” he announced, far too loud for this time of the day.

Dean took the hunk of bread without complaint and bit into it. Hopefully chewing would keep him awake.

“Where did you get bread from? It’s barely sunrise,” he asked through a mouthful of dough.

Sam frowned at Dean’s lack of manners and, instead of answering, gestured with his head down the road.

“So, he hasn’t shown up yet?”

Dean tore another chunk off the bread deliberately before he spoke.

“No. Not yet.”

They waited another minute, both alternately taking bites of their meagre breakfast. After the third minute, a figure materialised on the horizon.

Even from this distance, Dean could tell it was Castiel. The man had a distinct walk; he didn’t slouch like most men, young or old, and if anything seemed to be gliding effortlessly towards them. Another thing that stood out about the man was his clothes. Dean wasn’t surprised that the preacher had kept to his cloth; the white collar was particularly eye catching, but he knew that they couldn’t go around with their own personal man of God for long. It would attract too much attention. Thankfully, the streets were bare at the moment but that would soon change.

Once he was within speaking distance, Castiel nodded at the brothers in greeting, looking far more awake than anyone had the right to be. Sam smiled politely back and pushed his weathered hat up out of his eyes.

“We were beginning to think you’d changed your mind,” he joked light-heartedly.

“It took longer than I thought it would to say goodbye,” explained Castiel with a slight grimace.

Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out a third chunk of bread and offered it to Castiel.

“Breakfast?”

Although Castiel appeared grateful for the gesture, he lightly shook his head back and forth. Sam shrugged, ripped it in half and tossed one side to Dean’s awaiting hands.

“So what did you tell them?”

Sam glanced over at Dean and was immediately thankful for the fact that Dean had bothered to swallow his mouthful before he addressed the preacher.

Castiel stared at Dean for a few tense seconds before he decided to answer.

“I told them that I had found a path or, more precisely, a path had found me.”

Dean snorted, not even tactfully trying to hide his distaste for such religious sounding mumbo-jumbo.

“And they were fine with that?” he asked, cynicism almost dripping from his tongue.

Castiel scowled.

“The other Fathers admitted they did not understand but they wished me happy nonetheless.”

Where most men would have felt scolded, Dean felt no shame. He simply waved off Castiel’s answer and turned his attention to his horse. Castiel was left scowling at his back.

Sensing the tension, Sam cleared his throat. The noise reminded Castiel that there was someone else behind him and he stepped back, his normal blank mask back in place.

“If it’s any consolation, we think you’re doing the right thing,” Sam offered with a weak smile. Castiel only nodded in his direction to prove he had heard him and Dean made a quiet noise of mumbled acceptance.

Sam finished off the last of his bread and approached his own horse, straightening various things while tightening others. Dean was doing the same to his left and Castiel stood awkwardly in the middle, eyeing both horses with something close to unease.

Dean had a small bit of bread left which he fed to his horse, smiling while he patted its nose. He and Sam had already spoken about the specific logistics of their travelling earlier this morning and, although Dean was tired enough for it to have made a modicum of sense then, now that he was a little more alert he was beginning to re-think their strategy.

Almost as if Sam could read his mind and somehow already knew that Dean was having doubts, he finished readying his horse and turned back to Castiel.

“Um, we can’t really afford another horse at the moment,” he gritted out apologetically over the back of his horse. “Demon hunting doesn’t exactly pay well,” he added with a laugh afterwards as a way to lighten the situation. “So, we’re going to have to share for a little while until we can spare the money.”

Judging by Castiel’s expression, the idea of sharing bothered him very little, it was the idea of merely getting on a horse in the first place that was making him shuffle from foot to foot.

Over by his horse, Dean had noticed Castiel’s reluctance and was smirking at him in amusement.

“And, this morning, we decided that it would be cruel to expect Sam’s horse to carry any more weight, so I guess you’ll be stuck with me for a while.”

Dean ignored Sam’s quick indignant cry of ‘hey’ at the insult and instead kicked his foot into a stirrup and swung himself up onto his horse with a well-practiced motion. Once he was comfortable, he arced around and stopped next to Castiel, who stepped back slightly as the horse snorted and waved its head.

Smirking all the while, Dean held down his dirt stained hand and, after a moment of nervous eyeing, Castiel gripped onto it with his own clean hand. Simply mimicking what he had just seen Dean do, he placed his foot in the stirrup and allowed Dean to pull him up and around, until he sat unsteady, and unhappy, behind him.

The horse bridled a bit at the extra weight and Dean felt Castiel flinch and awkwardly clench his fingertips into Dean’s shoulder. They weren’t going to get very far if they couldn’t move without Castiel clinging to him thought Dean with an inward sigh.

“Just hold onto my waist if you think you’re going to fall off, preach. I can’t ride if you’re pulling on my shoulders.” Dean’s tone was equal amounts teasing and practical.

Castiel dropped his hands to lightly grip Dean’s sides but still felt overly tense. He leant forward slightly and spoke into Dean’s ear.  
“I’ve never been on a horse or, at least, not since I can remember.”

Castiel’s voice sounded even rougher to Dean when it was almost touching his ear and his breath was moving the hair on his neck. Ignoring the shiver that ran through him, Dean jostled his shoulder to knock Castiel back but instead of getting the message and moving away, Castiel panicked and gripped tighter to Dean.

Dean made a noise between a groan of annoyance and a chuckle.

“Preach, you need to relax,” he whispered, and as though Castiel had only just understood how uncomfortable he was making him, he quickly pulled back and loosened his fists, muttering a soft apology.

When both men were as settled as they were ever going to be, Dean looked over towards Sam to find that he had been watching them the whole time, an eyebrow raised and a hidden smile on his lips. Dean frowned at him.

“Ready Sam?” he asked harshly, trying to wipe the humour off his face.

“Yeah. You?” Sam answered, not even trying to hide the smile now.

Dean rolled his eyes, clicked his tongue at his horse and gently dug his heels in to start a slow trot down the rapidly brightening street. To his credit, Castiel only flexed his fingers when Dean pulled on the reins to correct the horse’s gait, other than that he sat remarkably still and straight, surprising Dean.

They eventually reached the end of the street are the buildings became few and further between.

“Where are we going?” Castiel asked with genuine curiosity.

Dean was about to shrug when he remembered how that would probably end with a nervous rider behind him and instead mumbled, “South.”

Digging his fingers into Dean’s jacket, Castiel twisted as far as he dared to look back at the town that had been his home for the past four years. Dean followed his eye to see he was staring at the barely visible peak of the church and remembered something he had planned to ask the preacher.

“So how exactly did you explain the state we left the church in yesterday?”

“I didn’t,” he admitted plainly. “The ranchers were gone by the time I returned so I just feigned ignorance.”

Dean was shocked into laughter at Castiel’s admittance. “And they believed that?”

“I doubt it. It’s probably the reason they let me go without much of a discussion.”

For a moment, Dean recognised a bitter hint in Castiel’s voice and wondered further about the man they had talked into joining them.

Sam was noisily moving behind them, hopefully practising Latin over and over again in his head like Dean had proposed this morning as a joke.

“I know they must have cared for me a small amount, otherwise why would they have let me stay for so long,” Castiel continued quietly. “But, at times, they acted as though – as though they were afraid of me.”

Silence followed. Dean didn’t know how to respond to that in a way that wasn’t laughter. He nudged his horse with his boot and pulled it sharply to the right; a gust of air left Castiel’s lungs and he must have almost bruised Dean with the ferocity in which he grabbed onto his waist. In his mind, Dean felt better about the plan to bring the preacher with them. How anyone could be afraid of a man that startled that easily, he’d never know.  
\-----------------------------

The three men settled into a routine rather quickly, surprising the brothers who had never travelled with someone else before. Castiel didn’t exactly agree with their lifestyle but he never complained either. Both Dean and Sam soon got used to his presence.

Without a destination in mind, they simply chose a direction and moved. They rode during the day, through the sweltering sun and rested once the heat had evaporated somewhat during the night. On nights that they were in-between towns, they slept under the stars with only a campfire for warmth and light.

Dean would be unlikely to admit it, but he was actually beginning to enjoy the preacher’s company, despite his total lack of basic social skills and his stunted sense of humour.

The only thing that made them uncomfortable was the distinct lack of anything else. Over the fifteen days that they had been travelling, not once had they caught the trail of any demon and it was beginning to worry both Sam and Dean, who had never gone so long without some form of an attack. Castiel, one night, had voiced a thought that maybe they had given up and moved onto someone else. Sam and Dean had both remained quiet, neither wanting to say what they really thought.

Sam and Dean took shifts each night to watch over their makeshift camp and, after a few days of travel and almost constant insistence from the man, they finally allowed Castiel to take a shift. He offered to do the whole night once and Dean had laughed at his enthusiasm and told him it wasn’t necessary. Castiel had frowned and acted as though he hadn’t understood the joke, which just made Dean laugh harder.

Food wasn’t abundant but they made do. They stocked their pockets every time they passed a town and when that ran out they hunted what they could. Unsurprisingly, Castiel often offered his share to either Sam or Dean when food was low, seemingly not understanding that he needed to eat as well. Occasionally, and when Sam wasn’t looking, Dean accepted Castiel’s food just to see the man’s face light up when he thought they’d realised he was being sincere and, well let’s face it, he was hungry. Sam soon put a stop to though, once he noticed Dean hadn’t complained about being starving in a while. He’d attempted to explain to Castiel how his extreme politeness and bribery weren’t needed and that they weren’t going to just change their mind and abandon him if that’s what he was worried about. Dean still sometimes chuckled to himself when he recalled Sam’s overly earnest face and Castiel’s blank confusion.

Their life wasn’t ideal but it had become an acceptable routine.

\---------------------------

 

On their eighteenth day travelling, huddled around their small campfire, Dean was woken up from his evening doze by Castiel’s quietly questioning tone. Sam had disappeared a while ago to see if he could find them some dinner, so Dean knew he couldn’t just ignore Castiel, who had lowered himself almost silently onto the ground next to him.

Dean groaned and struggled to sit up straight, his muscles aching from the constant riding. Once he was up and had pried his eyes open he looked over at Castiel.

He was sitting cross legged on the ground wearing tattered jeans and a chequered dirt stained shirt. Dean had finally convinced him to change out of his usual black priestly attire when he noticed how warm the material must have been in this kind of heat. Castiel had just shrugged and taken the offered clothes, not seeming to notice or care that they had come from Dean’s bag.

The man definitely looked different wearing clothes that didn’t remind Dean of God. He looked more human, mused Dean, noticing that Castiel even had a cover of stubble on his face now.

Dean was forced out of his analysing stare when Castiel drew attention to what he had in his hands.

“Where did you find that?” Dean asked gently, trying not to show how much he wanted to lean over and grab the object out of Castiel’s hands.

“I didn’t mean to pry. I was looking for an extra blanket and it just sort of fell out.” Castiel ran his fingers over the leather cover of their father’s journal. He touched it with respect like he knew how important it was to Dean. “What is it?”

Dean blinked. Castiel hadn’t even opened the book and he was running his fingers over it as though it was instinctively precious to him. Dean still wasn’t sure what to make of this man.

“You didn’t open it.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement. Castiel looked up and caught Dean’s eyes straight on.

“I didn’t want to pry,” he answered naturally.

Dean smiled at the child-like sense that made and reached over to pluck the book out of Castiel’s hands.

“It’s a journal; it was our father’s,” explained Dean as he flipped open the cover and tilted the book towards Castiel and the light of the fire to show the initials sketched in the corner. “Sam and I weren’t born with the knowledge of demons and of basic Latin, hard to believe I know. Everything we know, we learnt from this.”

“You father also hunted demons?” Castiel was either shocked or in awe, Dean couldn’t really tell by his voice.

“Yeah, except it was more like just one demon. The rest kind of got in the way.”

“I seem to recall Sam saying something similar when we met.”

Castiel held out his hand in a ‘May I?’ gesture and Dean realised he felt completely fine handing the journal over to him. Castiel carefully leafed through a few pages, stopping to read at random intervals and tilting the book where their father’s writing skewed off in different directions.

“I don’t remember my father,” whispered Castiel.

Dean spent the next few seconds debating over whether or not he was supposed hear it or if he was supposed to react.

“I thought God was your Father,” he said finally and immediately regretted it.

Thankfully, Castiel didn’t seem offended; he smiled at Dean fondly, his expression resembling something a mother would send her small child.

“It’s not quite the same,” he admitted softly.

Castiel continued to quietly turn the pages of the journal until something caught his eye. His brow furrowed as he brought the book closer to his face; the fire only gave off a dim light and made reading rather difficult.

“Exorcizamus te…” he spoke fluently and without hesitation only trailing off at the end to look up at Dean. “This is the Latin that Sam used to exorcize the demons.”

Dean nodded absentmindedly, too busy watching Castiel skilfully juggle the Latin wording and pace with a kind of ease that Sam would never achieve.

“Have you come across it before?”

Frowning, Castiel shook his head. “No. Why?”

“You read Latin like a natural,” confessed Dean.

Castiel tilted his head in understanding and lightly shrugged his shoulders. “The church insisted.”

A slow, creeping smile dawned on Dean’s face and Castiel leaned back a bit in subtle alarm at its appearance.

“Do you think you could memorize it?” Dean asked, his voice hopeful.

Castiel dropped his stare back to the book in his lap and scanned the many verses of Latin script that covered more than one page. Looking over it again, Dean had a thought that it was impossible to think anyone could be expected to remember such nonsensical rubbish and already regretted asking Castiel to try. Knowing the man as well as they did now, the man would probably cut out both eating and sleeping just to work on the script.

“It shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve memorized longer passages for the church in the past,” declared Castiel as though the feat was nothing.

“Really?” Dean was still doubtful.

Again, Castiel looked up from re-reading the Latin to stare at Dean. For a second, Dean wished that Castiel had put a bit of space between them before he had decided to sit down because, when he then showed how little he knew about social boundaries, it made Dean slightly uncomfortable to have Castiel staring at him from such a close distance.

He soon forgot about it though when Castiel closed the book, keeping his thumb in the pages to hold his place and started reciting in perfect Latin.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…and so on.” Dean stared back at Castiel, wide eyed and impressed. “As I said, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Wow, Castiel, your Latin puts mine to shame,” echoed Sam’s voice somewhere to their right, startling both men who whipped their heads around at the noise.

As Sam was stepping over into their campsite, Dean edged away from Castiel, putting a respectable distance between them. He knew how much of a bastard Sam could be when he wanted to and he either hadn’t noticed Dean’s proximity to the preacher or he was saving up the comments for later. Regardless, Dean was still keen on removing the fuel from that fire as quickly as he could.

Once he had dropped onto the ground with an exhausted sigh, Sam caught Dean’s eye and sent a pointed look towards their father’s journal. Castiel already had his nose buried in it again so Dean merely shrugged.

“We have a preacher on our side now, Sam. Who better to do exorcisms than a bona fide priest?”

Sam quickly held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m all for it. The sooner I can stop learning Latin, the better,” he argued.

Without looking up, Castiel added, “Thank you, Sam.” He still wore his wooden rosary around his wrist and as he continued, he began fiddling with some of the beads. “I find Latin to be…rather soothing.”

Dean’s face formed a mangled expression of many emotions at once, ranging from harmless disgust to a strange fondness. Sam held a very similar look as they both stared at Castiel.

Eventually, they shook themselves free from the feeling and Dean began scanning the area around them. Seeing nothing, he glared back at Sam.

“I take it you couldn’t find anything,” he said, knowing full well that he would be going hungry tonight.

Guiltily, Sam shook his head. “I tried. I guess we’ll just have to make do with stale bread and dried meat again.”

Dean groaned dramatically and Sam was forced to roll his eyes at his childish behaviour. He reached behind him and dragged a bag across the dirt until he could delve his arm inside. When he brought it back out, he was holding a parcel of wrapped up cloth. Inside, there were the last of their rations. As Sam began doling out food, Castiel held up his hand and, without fanfare, said his line.

“If we are running low, feel free to take my share,” he offered gracefully.

The offer happened so often now that both Sam and Dean ignored it. Sam handed Castiel’s ration over to him and settled back with his own.

Scowling, Castiel held the food out in front of him. “I’ve soon come to realise that you two think I’m joking, but I’m really not.” He glanced between the brothers looking vaguely dismayed.

“Just eat it,” ordered Dean as he tried to enjoy his own small meal.

“But I’m not hungry. Surely, it would make more sense for you or –“

“Cas!” Dean interrupted abruptly before Castiel could argue further. “We’re not discussing this anymore. You’re hungry. Eat it.”

For a split second, Castiel looked upset; not at Dean but at himself. The food still sat in his hands and Castiel stared at it in distaste before he silently began eating it as ordered. Dean sighed in relief and turned to Sam to gesture ‘What the hell?’ at him but found him mouthing something back at him instead. Dean watched for a moment but couldn’t make out what it was over the dim fire. After a few useless seconds, Sam gave up, shaking his head and tilting his palms to the sky.

Turning back to his food, Dean rolled his eyes and tried to ignore his travelling companions, who were starting to grate on his nerves. He stuffed the last bite into his mouth, internally relishing the feeling of food in his stomach while also lamenting at the fact that it still wasn’t nearly enough.

Dean was mindlessly chewing when his brain sparked something close to recognition. Cas. He recalled the image of Sam mouthing silently over the fire and groaned at the realization that he was saying the word ‘Cas.’ Since when did he refer to their preacher by a nickname? Apparently, since ‘Cas’ had become so predictable and consistent in their lives that Dean could already predict what he was going to say.

Hoping that, for once, Castiel wasn’t doing his creepy staring thing, Dean snuck a look over at him. Their father’s journal was open across his knees, a few pages from the beginning as Castiel had decided to read everything over from the start. With a grimace every now and then, he bit off a chunk of bread but chewed it without complaint. The sight had soon become familiar and Dean surprised himself by thinking it was almost comforting. The only other time that he felt that content was when he sometimes just caught sight of Sam out of the corner of his eye, looking arguably happy but undeniably healthy. It was a friendly, family orientated feeling.

When had that happened? When had they become family? Dean asked himself with a frown.

Sensing that someone was watching him, Castiel raised his head and before Dean could swiftly shift his gaze away Castiel smiled warmly at him forcing him to smile back. It had been only him and Sam for so long that Dean had almost forgotten how to deal with anyone that wasn’t serving him silent shots of whisky or were not in fact his brother.

The strangest thing was that it had come naturally with ‘Cas’. For being an amnesiac ex-priest, he was surprisingly easy to talk to, Dean often jokingly thought to himself.

So when they finally settled down to sleep, circled around the meagre campfire, Dean simply overlooked Sam’s incessant snoring because he was his brother and they were family. And if the, stark against the relative silence, rustling coming from Castiel as he turned the pages of the journal kept Dean up longer than he would have liked, it was fine because it was just Castiel being ‘Cas’. He could overlook that too.


	4. Chapter 4

Hazy in the distance, barely distinguishable over the horizon, there rests a house. It’s made from old, cheap wood that on its own shouldn’t still be standing but put together to make the house it appears solid. You stare at it from a safe distance and don’t see any movement inside.

You blink and the world goes dark for a fraction of a second. Once the world reappears you find yourself looking through a different viewpoint. Like a bird flying south, you’re gazing down at the house. Somehow, the unusual sight made perfect sense to your disoriented brain but as quickly as it appears it disappears and once again you’re back on the dusty ground facing the horizon.

The images seem like they should be important to you but you simply don’t understand their relevance.

Shutter speed fast, you’re directly in front of the house and the smell of charred wood hits you like a fist. Being this close, you can see that the house isn’t as perfect as you initially thought. Starting from one of the lower east corners of the building, the wood is completely black and burnt through at places. The damage stretches up the side of the house and consumes the entire left side of the second floor. The rooms inside can be clearly seen through the missing walls and it’s a miracle that the house is still standing.

You think the warmth you’re feeling is coming from the sun but you soon realise that such choking heat could only be achieved through fire, surrounding walls of fire at the very least, but you check the house and the damage is already done. The fires have long since gone out; somehow the heat still remains.

A flash of yellow catches your eye. It’s strange, almost like sunlight being reflected off a mirror but you can clearly make out the beam and it’s completely opaque. If you reached out for it you’re pretty sure you’d be able to wrap your fingers around a substance that was purely the colour yellow.

Glancing behind you, you try to establish where the beam is coming from. Following the path, you see it growing stronger and brighter the further it moves from the house and once it hits the opposite horizon, which is eerily empty of any mountainous peak or natural foliage, it explodes into a sky-high wall of swirling yellow and black. The sight unsettles you so you turn back to the house.

The beam hits the front door. You wonder if it cuts clean through.

The porch is raised a few steps and you test the first one. It doesn’t creak like you expect it to but it also doesn’t feel like wood under your foot. In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything; it feels like a resisting force but not a solid one. You tread the last few steps anyway and stand just to the side of the beam and the door it collides with.

You reach out for the handle but a tugging sensation holds your arm back. Fighting against it, the struggle shocks you awake.

\-----------------------------------

“Cas! Castiel, wake up!”

Instead of jerking awake, Castiel regained his sense of reality slowly. Yellow and black drained from his vision only to be replaced by shades of red and orange. The first thing that really registered with him was a blistering heat that was too real and too lifelike to belong in a dream.

A strong grip tightened around his arm and pulled suddenly, dragging him across the ground and away from the source of intense heat. Castiel rolled onto his back to find Dean towering over him, eyes wide and hair wild. Once he had realized that Castiel was awake, he sighed in desperate relief and dropped onto his bent knees.

“What the hell, Cas?” he demanded, sounding out of breath.

Sweat trickled down Castiel’s face and settled into the hollow of his neck. “I feel like I’m on fire,” he replied truthfully.

Dean laughed but it wasn’t his usual mirth filled sound, this time it was a bit manic.

“That’s because you almost were,” Dean spouted hysterically.

Castiel turned his head to the side and saw that they were indeed only a few feet away from their campfire. He could still feel the danger from here.

“You were having a nightmare or something and you wouldn’t wake up,” explained Dean, a little calmer now that Castiel was awake and definitely not on fire. “I tried calling out to you but it didn’t work and then you started thrashing about. By the time I’d gotten over to you, you’d almost rolled right into the fire.”

Castiel tried to sit up but his limbs were shaking ever so slightly and it made the action a little difficult. Sensing his struggle, Dean helped him sit up with a gentle hand on his back. There was a rustling to their side and both men looked over at Sam who was sitting up on his elbows looking confused and lost. He caught sight of Dean and Castiel huddling together and narrowed his eyes.

Dean frowned at Sam and then fondly shook his head. “Go back to sleep, Sam. Everything’s fine.”

To his credit, Sam looked suspicious for a second but eventually dropped back down and rolled over, putting his back to them. Dean muttered something to himself about conclusion jumping brothers and returned his attention to Castiel.

“What were you dreaming about?” he ventured. “It helps to talk through your nightmares, or at least that’s what my dad use to tell me.”

“I was standing in front of a house. It had been burnt down recently,” said Castiel in a carefully measured voice.

It had been a few days since he’d been allowed to read through their father’s journal and he was now aware of a large part of the brother’s lives before demon hunting became their profession. Fire was understandably a touchy subject for them both, but Dean especially.

Dean swallowed. “And?”

“Fire had damaged some of the first floor and nearly all of the second and I seem to recall a vast amount of yellow.”

Dean shuffled around until he was sitting cross-legged opposite Castiel, who eventually followed his example while putting his back to the crackling fire.

“Yellow?” he questioned.

“Yes. Either, this yellow substance had caused the damage or it was trying to ward me away from the house, I’m not quite sure. When I tried to approach the house, something pulled me back and I woke up.”

Dean didn’t like the sound of Castiel’s dream. There was something horrifyingly familiar about a burnt down house and the colour yellow but it didn’t make much sense that Castiel was the one having vivid memories of an event that never happened to him. Castiel’s past may still be blank but this was Dean’s past not anyone else’s. Even Sam’s recollections were hazy at best.

“Where’s my dad’s journal?” asked Dean, the non-sequitur not bothering Castiel in the slightest.

“It’s back with Sam’s belongings.”

“Good,” Dean nodded repeatedly. “I think you should probably take a break from all this reading for a while, Cas. Reading scary stories before bedtime is not doing you any favours,” he joked and patted Castiel sharply on the back.

Castiel frowned at the hand and then at Dean as he slowly stood up and stretched his legs.

“I’ve had dreams like this before, Dean,” he admitted. “Long before I read your father’s journal.”

This made Dean pause. He turned back to Castiel, looking down at him, trying to gauge just how serious he was being. Castiel held that same expression he always held, that gravely grim face that was seconds away from declaring something bad. Castiel wasn’t the kind of man to mess around. Dean moved back over to Castiel and resumed his position opposite.

“What do you mean, before? Before before or just, you know, recently?” Dean grumbled ineloquently. Hope spiked in his chest at the idea of grasping some straws from Castiel’s mysterious past but a sense of unease also came with following this thread.

“While I was with the church, they used to often talk about me. I guess I was the most interesting thing that had happened to most of these men and I was often the subject of discussion,” Castiel mused quietly, clearly confused by the idea of being described as interesting. “Anyway, apparently, during the first few days whilst I was basically comatose, I was having numerous nightmares.”

“I guess it’s not surprising. Something big must have happened to you to lose all your memories. Nightmares sound like the least of your worries,” Dean added sympathetically.

“Even once I had recovered, the nightmares continued. They were never as bad as they were the first few days but they were all very similar. Although, they did stop for a while…” Dean subconsciously leant forward at Castiel’s dramatic pause, “when I met you.”

Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably at Castiel’s blunt admission. “What?”

“This is the first time, in a long while, that I’ve dreamt like this. They stopped when I met you and Sam.”

Running his hands hurriedly through his hair, Dean exhaled loudly.

“Okay, let me get this straight. You’ve been having these dreams for as long as you can remember which, admittedly, isn’t that long, and they stopped when you met us. But now they’re back with a vengeance,” Dean catalogued out loud. “What exactly do you usually dream about?” He was almost afraid to know.

“They’re disjointed images once I’m awake unfortunately. I see the house a lot and it’s always the same house. I also see a woman. She moves around the house, sometimes she’s there sometimes she’s not. The fire and all this yellow are new.”

Dean groaned and buried his face in his hands, scrubbing at the feeling of uncleanliness.

“I don’t like this, Cas,” he moaned into the curve of his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel answered dejectedly.

When Dean raised his head enough to peek at Castiel over his fingertips, he saw him looking weary and defeated. It wasn’t a good look for him, Dean decided.

“It’s not your fault,” he reminded Castiel truthfully. “But I think we can guess why the demons are so interested in you now.”

“Why?”

Castiel regarded Dean with a cocked head; the tilted look resembling a puppy the more and more Dean saw it.

“Why? This is why.” Dean waved a hand in Castiel’s direction and was dangerously close to shouting at this point. “You’re this walking enigma with creepy-ass prophetic dreams, Cas. They’re after me and Sam but I can say, with complete certainty now, that you’re involved with us somehow. You may not remember it but you’re part of this.”

“I suppose so.”

Dean choked out a laugh, half real and half hysterical. Abruptly, he stood up.

“I don’t know how to deal with you most of the time,” he said with an air of fondness.

“I’m sorry.”

Dean gently pushed at Castiel’s shoulder, urging him to lie down again. Castiel’s body moved immediately at the slight inclination.

“Don’t be,” Dean muttered and turned to leave Castiel. “I know you won’t but try to get some sleep.” He went back to the blanket he had haphazardly thrown don’t onto the ground and tried, in vain, to get comfortable. “Just stay away from the fire this time.”

\---------------------------------------

 

Their routine continued as the days passed, only, instead of just accepting their lives as they were now, the three men found that they were beginning to enjoy each other’s company without an underlying sense of obligation.

Before, Dean and Sam hadn’t always gotten along; there were often times when one completely irritated the other but, due to the unspoken bond of blood, the tension would have to be buried and repressed. With only one other person around to watch your back, you couldn’t afford to hate that person and have them hate you back. Distractions like that are what cost lives.

With an extra person around though, thoughts could be shared more freely. Irritations could be brought out into the open and discussed until they were resolved or they simply drifted away. And, if that didn’t work, there was always someone else around to talk to behind their back. Sometimes, all that was needed was an ear to vent to and that could easily be solved by having an extra person around.

Surprising probably all three of them, Dean was the one to grow closest to Castiel. All the evenings bonding over repeated nightmares and half-remembered pasts had connected them in a way that Sam would never understand. Castiel seemed to trust Dean and any time he felt he needed to get something off his chest, it was Dean he approached. Sam should have felt rejected but every evening when he looked across the fire to where they were sitting close together, he’d be reminded that Castiel was probably Dean’s first true friend and that thought amused him so much being left out ceased to bother him.

However, it was Castiel, who got stuck in the middle more often than not, that probably had the worst deal. Due to their strengthening bond, whenever Dean had a problem he would inevitably go to Castiel; usually when Sam did something that was particularly annoying or Sam-like. Castiel was also the only person Sam could talk to when he thought that Dean was being particularly stubborn or idiotic.  
Castiel would always listen amicably and nod in all the right places, sometimes even honestly agreeing with some of Sam’s complaints about his idiot brother and humouring Dean when he trash-talked Sam.

Somehow, their system worked. It’s amazing how quickly people could bond over shared dislikes.  
\-------------------------------------

 

After almost a month of travelling together, there were still no signs of any demonic activity and Dean was getting ready to crack. It wasn’t that he wanted to be attacked he just wished he knew what they were planning. Anything was better than endlessly waiting for the kick he wasn’t sure was coming.

Whilst they had begun their trail by heading south, by the second week, they had steadily been tilting eastward. With still no destination in mind, they were at a bit of a loss of where to go next. Yellow eyes was still the priority but without any minor demons to clue them in, they had no idea where he might show up next. Dean was beginning to think they would need to change their usual strategy if they planned on getting anywhere useful.

Shifting the reins to one hand, Dean used his free hand to ruffle his hair, letting the passing breeze shake some of the dust out as he rode. The sun was pretty much directly above them at this point and Dean was being forced to squint against its brightness. He’d donated his hat to Castiel this morning when he had approached Dean, unsure and worried, to complain about a pain in his head. Dean had since spent the day shielding the sun from his face with a hand cupped over his eyes.

Every now and then, he’d feel the brim of his hat press against the base of his neck as Castiel would sway from the motion of the horse’s canter. Now that regular interaction with horses had pretty much negated Castiel’s unease at riding, his feelings towards them had simply morphed into a solemn dislike. They all knew Castiel was much happier sharing and, truthfully, Dean wasn’t all that bothered. Buying a third horse was still at the bottom of the list of things to do with their limited supply of money; food was at the top. Getting Castiel his own hat was a new addition.

The pressure on the back of his neck increased and without looking Dean guessed Castiel was sitting hunched over with his head leaning on Dean’s back. For a second, Dean worried, but Castiel’s grip was still firm around the material of his jacket at his waist so he curbed his initial instinct.

A dark spot on the horizon caught his attention instead. The blob soon grew bigger and more defined as they moved closer and pretty soon Dean thought he knew what it was.

“Now this might be the heatstroke talking but is that a house?” Dean shouted across at Sam, who was riding by his side.

“It sure looks like it,” yelled Sam, suspicion lacing his words.

“What the hell is a house doing all the way out here?” Dean slowed the horse into a trot so that he could talk to Sam a little easier.

“It’s probably abandoned,” Sam informed Dean, ignoring him when he sent a look of disbelief his way. “I think this use to be farm land but because of the droughts I guess the owners were forced to move.”

“How the hell do you know this stuff?” Dean asked in exasperation. Sam was like a walking encyclopaedia sometimes.

“We go to a lot of places, Dean. People talk. You should try listening every now and then.”

Dean scoffed and squinted through the sun to get a better look at the house. It didn’t give off an abandoned vibe as far as Dean could tell but he also couldn’t see any movement. Both horses had slowed down to a more leisurely pace but they were still closing in on the building rather quickly. With their luck, Dean grimly thought to himself, they’d probably get shot for trespassing.

“You alright there, Cas?”

Sam’s voice was clearly meant to be teasing but Dean could hear the subtle worry in his voice and started to focus on the touch at his neck. In answer, Castiel groaned, mumbled something unintelligible and rocked his head sideways, rubbing the hat against Dean’s back.  
Dean couldn’t risk twisting around on the horse without dislodging Castiel and most likely sending him sprawling onto the dirt. Instead, he whipped his head over to Sam, his brow starting to furrow in concern.

“What’s he doing, Sam? He didn’t fall asleep, did he?”

Sam frowned, unsure. “I don’t think so.” He carefully pulled his horse over to Dean’s and reached out to place a hand on Castiel’s back.  
Instantly, Castiel twitched and tried to move away from the gingerly applied pressure which left him nowhere to go but forwards. Dean would deny it later when Sam found the time to tease him about it but he let out a small, definitely manly, yelp when Castiel’s grip suddenly tightened to uncomfortable levels. Castiel moaned again and, this time, Dean swore he heard his name hidden amongst the rest of the gibberish.

“Do you think he has heatstroke?” guessed Sam.

“Maybe. It could be; he did say he had a headache this morning,” Dean mused, wishing he could turn around and get a good look at Castiel. “What should we do?”

Looking around, they were in the middle of nowhere, stuck in an area equal distances between anything resembling a town. Except for the house.

“He needs some shade, Dean. I guess we have no choice but to try the house.”

Dean agreed but he wasn’t particularly happy about it. Castiel crowded closer and Dean could feel the excess of heat coming off him as he propelled the horse forward with his boot heels.

Upon closer inspection, the house was clearly abandoned. A low wood and wire fence surrounded the building and had deteriorated so much in places that huge gaps left the fence useless. The ground under-hoof had slowly gotten harder as they approached and by the time they reached the boundary the ground was so dry that it was littered with cracks and holes. Carts that had once had horses to pull them lay scattered around the site, all strangely left behind despite still being in usable condition.

The house itself was just as miserable looking. Every window was missing its pane of glass and the front door hung at an angle on its hinges. The wood was clearly rotting and load bearing planks were probably groaning under the stress.

Dean reached the house first and gripped Castiel’s arm around his waist when he abruptly brought the horse to a standstill. With a hand still on Castiel, he twisted around, lifting his leg over the horse’s head until he was seated in a somewhat awkward sideways position. But at least now he could see Castiel’s face more clearly.

Without Dean to lean on, Castiel had immediately hunched over on himself and Dean had to gently pry him up straight. His skin was clammy to the touch even through his shirt. Dean reached up and knocked off his hat with a sweeping hand, bringing it back to press it to Castiel’s forehead. He was hot, sweating profusely and, now that they had stopped the horse, Dean could feel that he was shivering as well.

“Cas?” tried Dean, hoping that he wasn’t too feverish to react. “Can you hear me?”

With what looked to be great difficulty, Castiel lifted his head to glare at Dean with hooded eyes. There was recognition in his action but the fever had drained him a fair amount.

Sam stopped close by, slipping down off his horse and quickly wrapping the reins around a post from the broken fence. Once he was down, he shifted hesitantly on his feet, not sure what he could do to help.

“Sam, come here and hold him up a second,” Dean ordered, giving himself a chance climb off.

Now on the ground, Dean reached up to grab a hold of Castiel’s loose arms and pulled. Castiel fell with a boneless ease that frightened Dean. The crushing dead weight would have knocked him off his feet had Sam not caught them both. Close now to complete unconsciousness, Castiel let himself be clung to and with Dean’s damp panicking hands he was having trouble keeping a steady grip.

“Get his feet. I don’t think I can carry him on my own.”

Sam swiftly did as he was told and heaved Castiel’s legs up off the ground and together they clumsily carried him towards the house. The slight incline of the porch proved problematic at first but once Dean hooked his arms under Castiel’s armpits and around his chest they manoeuvred him up and inside.

It was even worse inside. Cobwebs covered almost every dark corner and dust coated every surface in sight but they ignored it and quickly found a downstairs bedroom.

Sam carefully placed Castiel’s feet back on the ground and moved over to the bed. He knocked away the cobwebs that got directly in his way and grabbed the corners of the sheets. He ripped them all off with a flourish, hoping to take the layer of dust with it. Once it was relatively clear, they gently moved Castiel over to lie down.

Dean dropped down to sit next to him and, with a handkerchief, began wiping the sweat off Castiel’s face. It was definitely cooler inside but his skin was still overheated to the point that it was pulsing.

“See if you can find some water somewhere; we don’t have much left,” Dean ordered, entering a kind of full-mothering-mode that Sam hadn’t experienced in years. “There might be a pump outside and if it hasn’t been used in a while there might be some left.”

Sam quickly disappeared leaving Dean and Castiel alone. Reaching into his jacket, Dean found his flask; it was filled with holy water but that wouldn’t matter. Tilting Castiel’s head, Dean brought the flask up to his chapped lips and was relieved to see him sip at it without fuss or difficulty.

Placing both the half-empty flask and the handkerchief within reach, Dean began to unbutton Castiel’s shirt, pulling the halves apart to let some air reach his heated skin. As he moved down to tug off Castiel’s boots, he happened to notice his lips moving wordlessly.

“Cas? Cas, you with us?” Dean lightly slapped at Castiel’s cheek but his lips continued to mouth something.

“You’re going to have to speak up, Cas, I can’t hear you,” said Dean smoothly while bringing himself closer.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel croaked with a wrecked voice that made Dean’s heart clench unfairly.

“It’s not your fault, Cas. We should have gotten you a hat long ago,” he chuckled but didn’t really feel the humour. Castiel looked absolutely miserable.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he repeated a little louder this time. “I tried but…”

Dean frowned, not entirely sure what Castiel was getting at, maybe the heat had fried his brain more than he’d realised.

“Tried what? You mean this morning? About the headache? See, really, it’s my fault. I should have figured it out.”

Castiel weakly shook his head in faint annoyance. Apparently, Dean was completely off the mark.

“Too late…I was too late…sorry,” he mumbled incoherently, growing more frenzied at each word. “I couldn’t do it…I couldn’t save…I failed…I –”

“Cas, calm down.” Dean pressed a hand onto Castiel’s chest. Some of the heat had gone but by the looks of it, it had just moved to his brain instead.

Dean was beginning to panic. Tears were starting to well up in Castiel’s eyes and were soon trickling down the side of his face. Whatever world his frazzled brain had concocted for him, it was quickly tearing Castiel apart.

“You,” he suddenly snapped, eyes frantically flitting around until they rested on Dean. “I saw you…you looked so…so sad. I just couldn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Dean implored. Maybe if Castiel said everything he needed to then he would snap out of his apparent trance.

There was a pregnant pause and for a moment, Dean thought Castiel had finally passed out but then with such deliberation and importance Castiel said, “Stay. I couldn’t stay.”

Castiel’s eyes were wet and so blue that Dean could only stare at him in desperate confusion. The conviction in Castiel’s voice was throwing him off. By all means, the words were gibberish but he seemed to be so sure of something.

He struggled until he could sit up straight; he pushed away Dean’s hands when he tried to coerce him into lying back down. Facing Dean, who was perched on the side of the bed, he reached out his shivering hands and cupped the sides of Dean’s face. Ignoring how clammy and damp they were against his cheeks, Dean simply waited with bated breath.

He then stifled a surprised gasp when Castiel gently pulled his head closer to place a lingering kiss on his forehead, all the while murmuring a quiet litany of ‘I’m sorry’.

Dean was pretty sure his heart was either going to burst out of his chest or simply give up considering how fast it was beating. He felt like he should be crying. Isn’t that what people did when they were being comforted so sweetly and with such heartfelt emotion? The problem was that Dean had no idea why he was being spoken to so earnestly, or why he was being comforted in the first place. He almost didn’t care.

“Oh.”

The tension immediately snapped and left the room at the quiet exclamation of surprise. Sam stood in the doorway to the bedroom, a pail of water in his hands, staring guiltily at Castiel intimately cupping his brother’s face. Dean sighed, spell finally broken, and tried to pry Castiel’s resisting fingers off.

“I think he’s lost it, Sam,” Dean explained, attempting to remove the guilt Sam was falsely feeling, thinking he had interrupted an important moment between the two. “He keeps saying he’s sorry. Maybe he’s hallucinating, or something?”

Sam didn’t look entirely convinced but he came closer with the water to peer down at Castiel. Dean had managed to manhandle back down by pressing both of Castiel’s hands to his warm chest with one of his own.

“He does look flushed,” pointed out Sam and, if Dean wasn’t too busy being worried he would have sworn there was a teasing lilt to his tone here.

“I…I think he’s asleep,” whispered Dean as he stared down at Castiel’s still form with trepidation.

Carefully and gingerly, Dean lifted his hands from Castiel’s body and waited to see if he would twitch or suddenly reach out to grab him again, but he just continued to lie still, eyes closed and breath coming out in quick pants like a dehydrated dog.

Sam crouched down over the pail and soaked a small swatch of cloth he had found, that looked vaguely clean, in the water. Squeezing off the excess, he draped it over Castiel’s forehead and stood back.

“I don’t know what else we can do for him, Dean. If he wakes up again we should try and make him drink something but, other than that, I don’t know,” sighed Sam in defeat.

Without jostling the sleeping figure, Dean slid off the bed, meandered around the pail on the floor to grab Sam’s arm and dragged him out of the room. Once they were a safe distance away, Dean let go and whirled around, hands nervously flitting from his hips to his hair and back again.

“You should have heard him, Sam,” said Dean, while twitching like an inexperienced outlaw on his first job. “He really believed what he was saying. It was freaky.”

Trailing over to the dusty dining table that was circled by worn wooden chairs, Sam settled onto one of them; he hoped that if he appeared calm that maybe Dean would take it as a hint to calm down himself. Dean was either too far gone or he just didn’t care because he immediately began pacing.

“Well, what exactly did he say?”

“He just kept saying he was sorry. That he’d tried to save someone but he’d failed and that he was sorry. Jesus, Sammy, he even started crying. I didn’t know what to do with him.”

Sam watched Dean worry and pace; ignoring the blatant fact that he’d left the touching kiss out of his brief reprise. At some point, Castiel had wormed his way onto Dean’s short list of people he gave a damn about. Admittedly, it was less of a list, more of a single name - Sam’s - but as of a short time ago, the list had doubled in length. It was a little endearing if Sam thought about it. Dean could really mother someone when given the chance.

A dim light of an idea burned in Sam’s head as he thought about what Castiel had said in his fevered state. He was a bit wary about divulging it to Dean as there was no telling how he’d react but it made sense and Dean deserved to know his theories.

“Did you ever think that maybe what he was saying was true?”

Dean stopped pacing and slowly turned to face Sam, his expression unreadable even to him, when he’d thought he’d seen everything his brother had to offer.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“Well, he doesn’t remember anything beyond the past four years, does he? Maybe this is what he forgot. You said yourself that he was crying and it must have been an emotional event that made him lose his memories. It kind of fits, Dean.”

“Maybe…,” started Dean, clearly dubious about Sam’s theory to begin with. But then something must have sparked in his mind because he began to shake his head. “But it couldn’t have been a memory, he said he saw me.”

“What?”

“He said he saw me and that I looked sad. If this is a memory then he’s not the only one with some form of amnesia, Sam, because I’ve never met him before a month ago.”

“Maybe that part was the fever talking,” Sam tried weakly with a half-hearted lift of his shoulders.

Dean sighed noisily and began pacing again.

All they could do now was wait.  
\---------------------------------

Dean was stuck in a state somewhere between being awake and asleep. If he really focused, he could see Sam slumped over the table, head resting on his folded arms, as he snored ever so slightly; but if he let himself drift, he could picture Castiel lying on the dusty bed just as they’d left him, shirt open and cloth across his forehead. He didn’t particularly like looking at either, hence the in-between state he was currently stuck in. Hopefully, this state would at least give him the appearance of having rested because that was all he needed at the moment.

Castiel had scared him today, or was it yesterday now, he wasn’t sure, but it didn’t really matter. Castiel had scared him, regardless of what day it was. He wouldn’t even be their responsibility if he and Sam hadn’t talked him into joining their insane escapade. Dean had never had someone stay with him voluntarily; family didn’t count, that always carried obligations, ‘friends’ were different, you have to work to keep friends. Castiel made him feel a strange sense of responsibility unlike anything he’d ever felt with Sam and he wasn’t sure what to do with it most of the time.

In some sort of foggy understanding, Dean could tell that the wind was picking up outside and a distant, barely there, part of himself told him to wake up.

The missing glass from all the broken windows slid unpleasantly across the floor creating a noise eerily similar to nails on a blackboard and Dean was still trapped in a kind of sleep paralysis, forced to only listen and watch. The crooked door rattled on its hinges but didn’t swing open due to its awkward angle. Outside, through the empty window frame, Dean spotted a mass of swirling black clouds and struggled to gain some control over his limbs before it was too late.

Sluggishly, he managed to drag his feet off the table and move out of the reclined position in which he’d been trying to sleep, uncomfortable though it was. As the blood slowly flowed to his feet, it left a heavy trail of itchy pains that made his legs feel like his boots were lined with lead.

“Sam!” Dean shouted with a mouth that refused to cooperate.

He didn’t know how successful he’d been trying to wake his brother up because, before he could check, the smoke had streamed through the empty window and, with an added extra-dickish-move, barrelled straight into Dean’s chest knocking over his chair and punching the air out of his lungs.

Dean and the chair skidded across the floor; the chair stopping half way but Dean continuing until his spine crashed into the wall. On the plus side, he was pretty sure the shock had awakened his limbs again; the down side was that he didn’t think he wanted to move anymore anyway. He groaned in perfect representation of how his back was now complaining.

“Aw, sorry, Blondie. I didn’t mean to put you out of commission so soon. We wouldn’t want you to not be able to fight back now, would we?” crooned a sickly sweet voice hovering somewhere over Dean. He had his eyes closed from the pain but he still cringed at the use of the royal ‘we’. He hated the royal ‘we’. It was patronization at its most infantile.

A foot quickly squirmed its way onto Dean’s chest, the heel digging threateningly into the fleshy spot just at the end of his rib cage. With, half faked, labour, Dean forced his eyes open, blinking furiously to clear the blur and focus on the person above him.

It was a woman this time. A little older than the ones Dean usually saw slinking around the bars they passed through. As of late, with money being a bit tight, they had taken to avoiding the bars, simply avoiding the temptation of alcohol altogether as Castiel had put it. Dean had hoped that this was one of those barely there jokes that Castiel like to try every now and then but he really couldn’t be sure; Castiel had a poker face to beat any Dean had ever seen.

Anyway, if they’d taken the time to stop by the last bar they’d passed, Dean was almost certain they’d have seen this woman posing by the wall, hoping to catch the eye of a man that took her liking. She was wearing a lot and very little at the same time. Skin was on show but her dress was so very layered, lazily hiked half way up her leg, that she was probably several sizes smaller than she looked.

“Couldn’t you find someone a little more threatening?” coughed Dean, his usual bravado lacking without the full use of his lungs.

“I thought you’d prefer this to getting manhandled by a dirty rancher, Dean,” she replied, putting on a pout so thick Dean felt genuinely sorry for the woman who was being used.

“Hey, I’m not complaining about the view, it’s the pointier footwear that bothers me.”

The foot in question wiggled slightly, emphasis dripping off the heel trying to bury itself under Dean’s ribs.

“I’m glad they do something for you because they’re murder on my ankles,” she sulked.

“Dean, what the hell?” moaned Sam, somewhere over her shoulder, having just woken up.

“Great reflexes, Sammy,” Dean sighed, fear immediately spiking through his brain.

The woman turned at the hip to regard Sam coolly, her foot on Dean didn’t let up in the slightest despite the change in her attention.  
“Don’t get jealous, Sammy,” she teased the nickname out with pleasure, “you’ll get your turn. Just sit and wait patiently.”

She nodded at the chair he had almost knocked over when he’d eventually jolted awake and with clear reluctance and force Sam dropped back down. All he could do was scowl at her, which he did with ferocity. She just smiled back.

The smile quickly dropped though when Dean fisted the ankle on his chest and rolled. Thankfully, demon-possessed humans still retained the very human disadvantage of clumsiness and the shock, coupled with the awkward position in which she was standing, meant that she stumbled and fell to her knees.

As quickly as he could, using her surprise to his advantage, Dean pinned the woman to the floor and caught the flask that Sam tossed him out of reflex. Uncapping it with his teeth was unpleasant but he soon had it held over her mouth.

“Stop moving or I’ll pour this down your throat,” he threatened, shaking the flask slightly to let drops splatter across her skin.  
She winced and stopped moving but narrowed her eyes at Dean as though he had just said something completely stupid.  
“I may not look it but I’m still stronger than you,” she growled, obviously not pleased with the turnabout of positions.

Dean smirked. “Yeah, but are you faster? I can’t say for certain what it’s like, but I’m pretty sure, for you, drinking this stuff is like drinking fire. I bet you can’t smoke out when you’re choking on holy water, either.”

The demon stayed quiet, glaring at Dean, eyes flicking to pure black and back again in anger, giving him an answer to his unasked question.

“Yeah, I thought so.”

Dean was aware of Sam rising out of his chair somewhere to his side but didn’t let his attention waver from the thing underneath him, who instead of glaring was now lying limp and smiling.

“Coming here today was a reward you know,” she said almost wistfully, causing Dean to wince. “I told the Boss everything that happened last time we met up, about what you did, what you said, what your brother did and…he almost flayed me right there and then. You don’t scare him, Winchester, you never did. You and your brother are playthings that he’ll eventually lose interest in.”

The flask in Dean’s hand shook, not out of fear but out of barely controlled anger. These monsters had taken his family from him but they acted as though that was nothing. He was all set to upend the flask and readied his other hand to clamp over her mouth to keep the burning fluid in her throat, when she continued with a smirk.

“But your friend, he’s a different story.”

For a completely brainless second, Dean thought ‘What friend?’ It’s always been just him and Sam, against the world, but then he remembered Castiel lying weak and helpless in the other room, a mystery to him but apparently a point of interest for the enemy.  
“Shut up. He’s got nothing to do with this,” growled Dean.

He wished he could have sounded more certain especially when the demon cocked her head to side and forced her stolen face into a look of mock pity.

“Oh, don’t start getting attached to it, Dean. You’re just making it harder for yourself. Do you remember what I said about possession?”  
Dean blinked at the apparent change in subject and then smiled a smile he hoped was at least partway convincing.

“How stupid do you think we are?” It was rhetoric but Dean could see that she’d answered in her head anyway. “Demon possession is the least of our worries.”

Hidden securely under his shirt, etched in ink on his chest, was a ward Dean had found very early on. It had to be re-drawn often but the mild nuisance was nothing when compared to the comforting sense of protection it provided. The same symbol appeared on Sam’s chest as well.

“What about your friend?” she asked with the tone of a person who already knew the answer.

As it turns out it really wasn’t that they were stupid, the real problem was that Castiel was incredibly stubborn. On one of the nights that he poured through the book, he had flicked past the anti-possession symbol in their father’s journal, and had immediately commented on its dark magic connotations.

Then Dean had pulled down the collar of his shirt, until the black ink was visible, and attempted to explain to Castiel, rather ineffectively, how important it was. It was the first time Dean had caught a glimpse of what he could only assume was Castiel the Preacher and not Castiel the amnesiac.

Since then, every time Dean brought it up, Castiel would refuse to have it copied onto his skin, citing some religious crap Dean would ignore. Due to the lack of demon sightings, Dean had wavered more often than not, usually to avoid a fight, and it wasn’t until now that he realised how stupid he was being. Yes, stupid. What he should have done was have Sam hold him down while he drew, whether Castiel agreed or not. Screw dark connotations. What was darker than having a demon walk around wearing your body as a suit?

Dean could feel sweat beginning to form on his forehead as he stared down at the smirking demon. Sam was around somewhere, Dean couldn’t see him but he called out to him anyway, his eyes never leaving the woman.

“Sam, go check on Cas.”

Boots creaked and floorboards whined as Sam went into motion. He moved into the edge of Dean’s sight and then disappeared again into the bedroom. He came back out seconds later, shaking his head.

“He’s not there, Dean.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean could feel the demon shaking under his hands; girlish giggles trying to escape through her sealed lips, but he was too busy gaping at Sam to care.

“Fucking demons,” he complained, straying dangerously close to a whine.

The child-like petulance was too much for the demon, apparently, because shrill laughter burst out of her mouth. Unfortunately for her, it also reminded Dean of their positions.

Her joyful smile was wide with her head tipped back as far as it could go on the wooden floor; it was the perfect set-up for Dean to turn over the flask and pour the water down her throat. She was genuinely surprised at first, choking and coughing it back up into Dean’s face, but it soon became too much and too painful for her to do anything but babble and writhe about.

The flask quickly emptied and Dean tossed it to the side, ignoring its stark clatter to clamp his hands over her mouth. She bucked and twisted frantically, albeit weakly, trying to dislodge him but Dean held tight. It wasn’t until red tinted water, human blood, started to leak between his fingers that he violently pulled back and stared at his hands in horror. The reddish water dripped down his wrist and stained his already threadbare shirt.

A wracking, bubbling cough exploded from the woman and a mixture of stringy blood and thick water gurgled out of her throat. Cringing in disgust, Dean swiped his hands up and down his shirt front.

It was then that the demon bucked once more, putting in all her remaining strength, and finally shifting Dean off her torso. A violent swing of her arm into the side of his face sent him rolling to the side.

Dean’s head was spinning, both from the blow and from thoughts of Castiel now being a meat-suit. Guilt flooded his body and he almost couldn’t bring himself to climb to his feet. Vaguely, he recognised Sam suddenly at his side, strong arms lifting him up

The demon was also unsteadily climbing up to its feet on the other side of the room. Her eyes were pitched completely black and a snarl twisted her otherwise normal face into something ugly. She repeatedly turned her head to spit out a mouthful of watery blood but she kept her glare aimed at the brothers.

“When…when I told him…about your preacher friend,” she spluttered, voice utterly destroyed. “He had a conniption.” She laughed brokenly. “Never…never seen him so pleased.”

“What do you want with him?” Sam demanded, still by Dean’s side.

“Revenge,” she coughed.

Dean felt as though he had been punched in the stomach as dread filled him entirely. They wanted revenge against Castiel and right now they had him at their mercy. What the hell could Castiel have done to make even the yellow eyed demon want him dead? He and Sam were basically only victims of circumstance, maybe it was the same with Castiel. He had to take a few deep breaths to stomp down the urge to vomit.

“What, can’t yellow eyes handle one insignificant human?” Dean asked, fishing for answers but trying to hide his intense apprehension.  
“Insignificant human?” she laughed derisively, mouth slowly changing into a sly smirk, made even eerier by the highlight of blood on her teeth. “Just what exactly has he been telling you?”

The tense silence that followed was all she needed and then she started shaking again, shoulders jerking up and down happily. Dean had never wanted to punch something more in his life.

“Darlings,” she drawled, lips painted red with blood, “he’s the furthest thing from human you’ll ever find.”

After she’d dropped her bombshell, she tipped her head back and waited to stream out into the night sky. But nothing happened. Only more blood left her mouth.

“What the hell?” she snarled and Dean was shocked into dull laughter at her confusion.

“Demon powers on the fritz?” he asked with a smile he didn’t really feel.

She glared and then, despite her injuries and the fact that she much have coughed up at least one of her lungs in the form of watery chunks, she stalked forward so fast that Dean barely saw her move. The next thing he was aware of was a hand crushing painfully against his windpipe.

Dean didn’t know how many times he could get pinned by a woman today before he developed some sort of complex but he was pretty sure he was quickly reaching his limit. She was holding him against the wall with only a hand at his throat and her other arm was stretched out to the side, invisibly holding a struggling Sam against the other wall.

“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you, Dean,” she near enough hissed. “This is it.”

To the side, Sam let out a bark of pain. Dean couldn’t turn his head but he could hear thread ripping.

“There’s only so much entertainment you can provide for him, guys, and he’s had enough. With you grouped together so easily, he’s finally finished.”

She squeezed Dean’s throat threateningly, her long nails cutting in a small fraction and Sam groaned again as she did something else to him.

“Why don’t you ask your friend what he really remembers?”

A loud slam echoed throughout the room and even the wall shook a little from the force. If they weren’t careful, Dean thought, this house was going to cave in on them all. He forgot about the ramshackle of a house, though, when the demon’s face scrunched up, so close to his own, and then snapped back. Black smoke streamed from her mouth like an angry black cloud. It stayed motionless in the air for a second and then as if an unseen force had tugged it, it flew out the window and disappeared.

The now demon free woman dropped to the ground with a thud and lay motionless. With nothing now holding him up, Dean slumped and gasped in mouthfuls of much needed oxygen. Sam was doing the same at his side.

“You okay, Sam?”

“I think so,” Sam swallowed audibly. “Just a few shallow cuts.”

Dean sighed in relief.

“Dean?” asked a quiet but deep voice that Dean instantly recognised.

His head shot up and, standing in the front doorway, looking as though he was ready to collapse, was Castiel. One of his hands was cradled against his chest while the other was clinging to the door frame in an attempt to keep himself on his feet. His face was flushed but his eyes focused on Dean in a way that proved he was lucid.

He took an unsteady step forward but his legs were shaking too much and he sank back against the door frame again. Dean climbed to his feet and approached Castiel cautiously.

“Cas? It is you, right?”

Dean looked closer. It still looked like Castiel; the same furrowed brow, the same blue eyes. There was blood on his hands and dirt on his knees but it looked like the same Castiel. Dean knew that awkward stance anywhere, even on a limping man. He’d be suitably impressed if a demon managed to mimic that without practise.

“I believe so, yes,” he replied in his usual stilted way.

A wave of water hit Castiel in the face and he barely flinched. Dean, on the other hand, jumped and spluttered until he saw Sam, second flask in hand, shrugging in apology.

“Sorry, Cas. Had to make sure,” he said and Castiel nodded, wet hair now clinging to his forehead.

“Understandable. If anything, it was rather pleasant.”

“Where were you?” Sam asked while he wiped at the blood on his own sleeve.

“I heard the demon and I slipped out of the window. I thought -” Castiel paused when Dean reached forward and pawed at his injured hand but then continued as though Dean wasn’t even there. “I thought an element of surprise would be helpful. I guess I was right.”

Castiel looked down at the hand Dean was inspecting. “It’s fine now, Dean, the bleeding has already stopped.” He wiggled his fingers in order to prove that his sliced open hand was still fully operational and Dean scoffed in disbelief.

“What the hell were you doing? The cut’s full of dirt,” he reprimanded, leaving the hand to move onto Castiel’s head to check his temperature.

“I found an unlocked cellar that led to a basement. Evidently, no one had been there in a while because the place was very dirty,” he gestured down at himself. “I remembered the devil’s trap from your father’s journal and I copied it onto the ceiling under the demon.” Castiel’s face grew grave. “But I must have drawn it too big though because it still managed to reach you, so I apologize for that.”  
Sam nodded in understanding. Dean just shook his head.

“That’s why she couldn’t, you know.” Sam then made an inarticulate gesture that someone might use to describe throwing up and it was Castiel’s turn to nod.

“Yes. And then, when I saw it going for you both, I started the exorcism,” Castiel explained while Dean dithered around him. “Dean, I think I’ve changed my mind about that anti-possession ward.”

Dean laughed and finally stepped back. “No shit.”

The three men stood wordlessly. Each injured in their own way.

“I think I’d like to sit down,” Castiel finally said, somewhat unsteadily.

“Oh, right, of course,” muttered Dean as both he and Sam took one of Castiel’s arms and guided him across the room.

As they passed the body of the woman, Castiel made them stop. A small, dark puddle of blood had formed around her mouth and her sightless eyes were stuck open. Slipping free of his helping hands, Castiel crouched down and placed his cleaner hand on her head and whispered quiet words of thanks and forgiveness. Dean could only watch Castiel’s moving lips for a second before he had to look away.

“We’ll have to bury her. She deserved better.”

Dean grabbed Castiel’s arm and pulled him back up and towards the bedroom. “Later. You need to rest.”

They hobbled to the bedroom and Dean helped Castiel lie down again. In an eerily similar fashion to earlier on, Sam hovered by the door.  
“I’ll go and start digging. We can bury her in the morning when you’re better and then we should probably move on,” he said and grimaced in the direction of the other room.

Castiel nodded lazily, already drifting off, and Dean just waved him off with a quick ‘be careful’.

Like déjà vu, Dean found himself perched on the edge of the bed while Castiel lay with his eyes closed. He reached for the wet fold of cloth that was resting near the foot of the bed and placed it back onto Castiel’s overheating skin.

Now that they’d been allowed a moment of peace, the demon’s words flooded his head. Furthest thing from human…what the hell was he supposed to make of that?

With gentle hands, Dean slid Castiel’s injured hand over to rest in his lap. The cut wasn’t very deep and had already crusted over with blood but it was smeared with dried dirt that wouldn’t do them any favours. On a whim, he held his hand palm open over Castiel’s; Castiel’s fingers were slighter longer and thinner than Dean’s. He curled a few of the fingers and then turned the hands over to sweep over the back. It seemed like a normal hand, a bleeding human hand, Dean decided.

“Dean?”

He flinched and then cursed himself, hoping that Castiel didn’t feel his grip tighten over his. He’d thought Castiel had fallen asleep the moment he’d closed his eyes but he’d been wrong.

“You should be sleeping, Cas,” Dean reminded as he used another relatively clean cloth to wipe away the dirt and grit from Castiel’s hand.

“I heard everything the demon said,” he admitted. His eyes were still closed but his expression was too pinched to feign sleeping anymore.

“You did, huh? So you heard how screwed we are?” Dean tried to sound light and airy but it was harder than he thought. All he wanted to do was blurt out ‘What are you?’ and that probably wasn’t the most tactful move.

“If I remembered anything, I would tell you.”

“I know you would, Cas.”

“But you’re still not sure.”

Dean sighed and leaned down to the foot of the bed again, this time to tear a strip off the dry and decaying sheets. He began to wrap Castiel’s hand and once he was done he stood up and somewhat awkwardly hid his hands in his pockets.

“Just get some rest, Cas, we’ll talk about this in the morning.”

Castiel immediately shot up when Dean turned to walk away; snagging the edge of Dean’s jacket with his just wrapped hand.

“But you’ll have decided by then,” Castiel said, sounding more miserable than Dean had ever heard from the man.

“Decided what?”

“If you trust me or not,” he replied, while ducking his head and letting his hand drop from Dean’s jacket.

This was it, Dean thought, he had to make a decision. What was Castiel? How did he fit in with him and Sam? What if the demon was telling the truth? He mulled it over for a second but he already knew his answer, he just wasn’t sure how to word it to Castiel in a way that didn’t stunt his manliness.

“Look, Cas,” Dean started as he turned around to face the bed and Castiel’s silently worrying face. “I’m only going to say this once, so try to remember it.” Dean took a breath. “You’re practically family now, Cas, and I don’t abandon family. So we still don’t know why the demons are after you, it doesn’t really matter, they’re still the enemy. So you’re not human. Who cares; you eat, you sleep, you bleed, you complain. If that’s not human, I don’t know what is. And about your past, it’s irrelevant until you remember. I’m not going to let some low-ranked demon tell me how to treat you. Okay?”

When Dean looked up from the patch of floor he’d been staring at to make his speech, he was genuinely surprised to see Castiel beaming. It was a full on grin, made slightly manic looking by the red flush on Castiel’s face. It was an amazing sight to Dean, who, at most, had only seen Castiel smile and occasionally chuckle dryly. This was Castiel happy and Dean wanted to see it more often.  
Dean has always been a live in the moment kind of guy. As he’d explained to Castiel, the past was important, of course it was, his life revolved around what had happened in the past but that was true about most people. Past was important because it led to the present. The future was simply something not worth thinking about, to Dean. In their line of work, the future was something that might exist, it might not; it all depended on the present.

Being a spur of the moment kind of guy meant that motive was often something best debated over later. So when Dean couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across his face at Castiel’s manic grin he didn’t really take the time to think about what he did next.

Dean was still standing close to the bed as Castiel’s grasping hands hadn’t allowed him to get very far and Castiel was grinning up at him with his head tilted back, looking as though he was completely content now that he knew Dean didn’t hate him.

It was a perfectly naturally motion, one that he had done many times in the past, except usually there was a different gender on the receiving end. Dean leant down and sandwiched Castiel’s face between his hands. Apparently, Castiel thought nothing of the non-sequitur gesture because he just continued to stare up at Dean with his too blue eyes. Even when Dean ducked closer and pressed their lips together, Castiel didn’t move.

It wasn’t a lingering kiss, but it lasted long enough for both men to know it wasn’t a mistake.

Dean pulled away, hands still holding Castiel’s face. “You just saved mine and Sam’s lives. We trust you,” he said as sincerely as he could.

Dean stood straight and tried to school his features into a more natural expression and Castiel allowed himself to slump back down on the bed, fatigue finally taking over.

“Thank you, Dean,” said Castiel quietly.

Retreating out of the room, Dean made sure to leave the door open and returned to the main room. It was a mess with broken glass littering the floor, chairs tipped over and a dead body lying motionless in the centre. He sidestepped the body, being extra careful not to look at the puddle around her mouth and left through the front door.

Maybe some mindless digging would give him some time to think about what the hell he had just done.  
\------------------------------------

You’re back at the house again, sitting peacefully, surrounded by a landscape of light browns and greens. It’s starting to become so familiar to you even throughout all the states you’ve seen it in over the years. Fresh and new, worn and used even burnt and destroyed, you know it from every angle.

From above, you see everything.

You can clearly see the stocky man approaching long before he would be visible to anyone in the house. You watch him walk tall and proud, unflinching, towards the house. You can’t help but find this strange because any normal man would have been cowering under the darkness that surrounded him. Like a bad stench, darkness streamed off him in all directions, painting the ground he had already covered an ominous shade. The skyline behind him was black and indistinguishable from the horizon but completely pure in the direction he was heading.

He stops a fair distance from the house, a literal black cloud circling him, and waits. Recognition claws at your heart. Something tells you you’ve seen this before. The only thing that’s missing is the opposition.

She appears almost as soon as you place the feeling. Compared to the swirling black, she’s as pure white as a summer cloud. Her hair is long and blonde; a white nightdress swirls loosely over her figure. She moves across the ground with the same single-mindedness as had the stocky man, but she seems to glide whereas the man roughly cuts his path out of the landscape as he moves.

She stops and they appear to reach an impasse.

Another man bursts out of the house and hangs his torso over the porch. He must be shouting but you hear nothing.

Suddenly, you’re down there, with them, in the fray. Facing the stocky man head on is vastly different to viewing him from way up above. From here, you can see his eyes. Like a spreading disease, the sick yellow from his eyes casually bleeds into the black, looking like a drop of ink submerged in water.

Evil resonates off him like an unheard chime and you instantly know what he is.

Down by your side, a heap of white lays still. The otherwise pure sight is broken by patches of red and the fact that she is dead.  
The jaundiced eyes crinkle in delight.

Images begin to flicker in and out of your mind.

Your hand around a neck; black seeping under your fingernails.

Fire quickly consumes the side of a house.

You stand straight backed over a distorted outline of a man with what could only be blood trickling out of its throat.

The man with the yellow eyes snarls at you and bares his teeth.

Then the flashing images pause and hold. At first glance, you can already tell that the darkness has disappeared but, in its wake, death and loss remain. The heap of white is being cradled by the man who had been leaning on the porch. Just like before, his lips are moving, more rapidly than earlier, but you still cannot make out the words.

You reach out for the man, intending to offer some comfort and soothing words, but when your hand comes in contact with the man’s head, he flinches back, hugging the woman close to himself. He gapes up at you in a strange mixture of fear and wonderment, while he half-heartedly tries to shield his face from a blinding light.

A knife finds its way into your hands, except it looks less like a knife and more like a large bladed spike with a handle, which your fingers curl delicately around. The man is clearly spooked by the weapon even though he refuses to turn away; he watches the blade in front of him with suspicion.

You’re not the enemy. You know that. You’re just not sure the man knows this.

You crouch until you’re both level. The man can’t seem to look you in the eye as his gaze flits all over. He never once could be said to be staring. That is until you let the blade twirl around in your hands so that the handle is now beckoning towards the man instead.

Grief is something you can’t say you’ve ever experienced before but, watching the man, you think you understand. He doesn’t take the knife; he just glares at you and pulls the woman’s head into the hollow of his neck. You place the blade down carefully beside him and return to your feet.

Whispering words echo invisibly around you…protect you…all and everything…keep them safe. Thinking it over, the words appear to be coming from you.

Once you’re back to the more familiar sight of looking down at the man, you want to reach out again, so you do. This time, he seems to reluctantly let you stroke his hair for a brief second before he tears his head away.

It doesn’t matter. You don’t deserve any gratitude anyway. You failed.

An unpleasant tugging sensation fills your entire expanse and you realise your time is up. You’re about to let yourself go when you spot him.

Dean, on the porch, looking remarkably younger, but still recognisably Dean. The expression on his face physically hurts you. You didn’t know that could happen, that it was even possible, until you had felt it and now want to curl into a miserable ball.

Dean doesn’t seem to see you, which you are thankful for. His eyes focus solely on the couple as you slink away, drifting into the blinding white and returning home for what you realise is the last time.  
\-------------------------------

Dean ached all over from his early morning digging workout and felt even more fatigued from his three hours of sleep than he would have if he’d just stayed awake. Even asleep his mind had raced, sometimes repeating the demon’s words again and again, other times simply replaying the moment he’d thrown all caution to the wind and kissed Castiel. He couldn’t decide which one was distracting him the most.  
Sam had already lowered the woman’s body into the grave they had dug, but not without complaint, and all they needed now was for Castiel to do his thing so that they could be on their way. For some unknown reason, Dean had volunteered to go wake him up.

Even though the kiss had seemed like the logical thing to do at that moment in time, and admittedly he didn’t exactly regret it now, Dean still wasn’t sure where things stood, with himself, let alone Castiel. As he approached the bedroom door in the morning he was understandably nervous.

Castiel was in the middle of attempting to stand when the door swung open fully and Dean walked in, unable to stop the delight spreading across his features at seeing Castiel up and about. Maybe he wouldn’t remember, Dean tried to convince himself; the fever had been pretty severe.

“Hey, you’re feeling better. That’s great because we really should get a move on. I don’t want to be here any longer than we need to be.” Dean held up a small, thin leather square and wiggled it in the air. “But before we do anything, we need to get you warded up,” he explained.

“Of course,” Castiel accepted neutrally, giving no insight into the inner workings of his mind.

Dean flicked open the leather square like it was a book and inside rested a pot of ink, a couple of pens, a few pencils and a very thin paintbrush. He pulled out a number of utensils and held them in his teeth while he removed the pot of ink. He tossed the square uselessly onto the bed and looked at Castiel as he tried to figure out how he was going to do this.

“Just sit on the bed,” he eventually decided, dropping to his knees when Castiel settled nervously on the edge.

With the pot unscrewed and his tools ready, Dean shuffled forward on his knees until he was within reach of Castiel.

“Okay, try not to move,” he instructed as he peeled Castiel’s shirt away from one of his shoulders. “Sam and I have gotten pretty good at doing it ourselves but I’ll do it for you this one time, just to show you how, alright?”

Castiel nodded minutely and stared at a point over Dean’s shoulder. Dean wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he just started on the symbol.

For a long time, Dean worked in silence, trying to keep his breathing slow and regular, knowing that Castiel could probably feel it on his chest, but unusually Castiel broke the silence with his heavily sombre voice.

“I remember, Dean.”

The three words were enough to make Dean’s heart trip over a beat. He’s not usually one to talk so bluntly about these kinds of things. As he’d proved earlier, he was better with actions than he was with words but if Castiel was going to bring it up then they might as well try and get things straightened out in both of their heads.

Dean took a breath; sucking in all the warm air around Castiel’s shoulder and making him shiver ever so slightly. He pulled back until he could see Castiel’s face and started in with his second from-the-heart speech in as many days.

“Good,” Dean said, resolute and nodding. “I’m glad.” Castiel’s eyes narrowed a fraction and he opened his mouth, ready to talk, but Dean swiftly interrupted. “Actually, you know what, it’s fucking great.” He pushed back onto his feet and began pacing. “I can’t tell you why I kissed you, Cas, but I do know that I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve never really had anyone that I could call a friend, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t how it goes for most people, but our lives are pretty fucking far from normal, so I don’t think sustaining a normal relationship with someone is possible for us.”

“Dean -” Castiel tried but was cut off again.

“I still stand by everything I said last night, Cas. You’re family now and you can’t abandon family. We’re going to get that son of a bitch before he can hurt anyone else and I want you to stay with me, with Sam, all of us together,” he finished and crossed his arms defensively over his chest.

This time, Castiel wasn’t grinning and Dean immediately wanted to cram the words back into his mouth and swallow them down forever. But, once Castiel realised he was allowed to talk, he surprised Dean.

“Thank you, Dean. I’m glad you told me. I feel the same way. I don’t want to leave you or Sam.” He took a moment to tilt his head at Dean in pity. “But that wasn’t what I meant by ‘I remember’.”

Dean cringed and fought back the urge to bury his face in his hands. “It wasn’t?”

“No,” he repeated and moved away from the bed. “What I meant was I remember everything. Who I am, what I did, how we’re linked, everything.”

“Well shit, that’s a good thing, right?” Dean managed to say over his own shock.

“In a way,” agreed Castiel.

Shaking his head, Dean placed his hands on Castiel’s shoulders and gently guided him backwards until he was back to sitting on the edge of the bed. He quickly dropped down next to him and waited expectantly.

“So what is it?” Dean prompted after Castiel had had long enough to organise his thoughts.

Castiel looked Dean directly in the eye and said, without a hint of doubt, “I was an angel of the Lord.”

It was so quiet in the room that Dean thought he could hear Sam tending to the horses through the broken window. Castiel was staring at him, waiting for a reaction and Dean didn’t think he had one to give him.

He settled for a shaky, “What?” in between trickles of nervous laughter but Castiel’s expression didn’t crack.

“This may be hard for you to hear, Dean, but I want you to listen to it all regardless.” Dean’s expression was dubious but he kept his mouth shut for a change and gestured for Castiel to continue with wide eyes.

“I was an angel of the Lord but I fell. It was voluntary but once I became human I couldn’t retain my memories of being an angel and since I never really existed before four years ago my human memories were also lacking.”

Dean couldn’t think sitting down so he left the bed and faced Castiel on his feet. He wasn’t retreating or creating a distance, he just needed to think.

“Why would an angel of the Lord want to become human? Surely that’s a bit of a backwards deal,” he argued.

Castiel quickly ducked his head, although Dean managed to catch a glimpse of shame and grief before he hid his face.

“I wasn’t fit to be an angel any longer.”

Dean allowed anger to cloud his confusion and reluctance to believe what he was hearing. “And what, being human is your punishment? Is that what you think of us? Of me?”

Like a shot, Castiel’s head was up, angelic wrath darkening his features.

“It may have started out like that but now I can’t help but feel that this life is some kind of reward I am unworthy of having. Angels are meant to be sources of faith and hope, Dean, but I failed and I fell.” There was a clear trace of human self-loathing in Castiel’s voice that must be new for him but he took to it like all humans do, like a pro.

“What could you have possibly done that would make an angel think, fuck this? Because it seems like it would have to be a pretty big something, Cas.”

Beads rattled as Castiel began to fiddle with the looping bracelet around his wrist. Dean couldn’t help but think it looked silly now he’d heard Castiel’s claims but it didn’t stop the angel from running his fingers over it in times of stress.

“Time flows differently up there than it does down here. And when I found myself with a lull I started to watch people, whole families or towns grow and disappear,” recalled Castiel with a slight smile. “There was one house that I would watch all the while; a husband and wife on a deserted edge of a town. She used to glow every time I saw her and the husband was fiercely loyal and protective. I began to feel genuine fondness for them as I watched them live out their lives.”

Dean tightened his fists. His hands were shaking and he couldn’t seem to stop them. Castiel’s story wasn’t sitting right with him and he was pretty sure he could guess where it was heading. The knowledge that Castiel was larger than he ever could have imagined was beginning to make him feel very small.

“They eventually had children, two boys, and I watched them grow as well.” Castiel’s smile grew soppy for a second and then his whole face darkened as he continued. “But I soon realised I wasn’t the only one captivated by them. They had drawn the attention of a powerful demon, the woman especially, and I began to fear for their safety. The thing about angels, Dean, is that they’re not meant to interfere. I was supposed to be a watcher of heaven not of earth.”

The shaking had spread to Dean’s legs and was getting so bad that he was afraid they’d give out soon. He clumsily dropped onto the bed, being careful to leave a space between himself and the supposed ex-angel.

“It wasn’t right for me to interfere but I couldn’t just let the demon destroy everything they had built.” The very human sin of pride filled Castiel’s voice here. “It took more strength and precision than I thought would be necessary but I eventually appeared in front of the family. I wanted so much to be able to help them but, as it turned out, I was too late. The demon had killed the mother and in turn had ultimately ripped the family apart. To top it all off, the demon had also gotten away and I had failed.”

Castiel’s fingers were twisting the small cross on his wrist in every direction. His nails were white due to his overly tight grip. Dean felt like he should reach out to still them but that would involve unclenching his hands and he wasn’t entirely sure he could manage that.

“I tried to help the husband with what energy I had left behind but evidently it wasn’t enough to save him and his children suffered for it. Once I returned to Heaven, I didn’t know what to do. Before, faith had always guided me but after that I felt lost. I eventually came to the conclusion that I was no longer an angel. I had lost the right to call myself that when I let the mother die, so I fell.”

“Cas…” Dean tried to comfort him awkwardly, ignoring the lump in his throat that appeared thanks to the nickname.

“It was both the best and worst decision I could have made. I felt, and still do feel, that this gift of a life is too good for me. I didn’t and don’t deserve it and then, against all possible chance, you found me, Dean. I failed your family but to you I was a stranger and you were so kind to me. I realise now that it’s finally my chance to help you.”

Castiel abruptly finished his story and looked towards Dean. There was fear and hope in his eyes and Dean wondered what emotion, of many he was feeling, was showing on his face, because there were simply too many in his head to know which one was winning out. He wasn’t sure whether to strike out or pull closer and Castiel looked seconds away from bolting.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in but I really do want to help you,” implored Castiel as he placed an uncertain hand on top of the sheets close to Dean’s thigh. “I understand if you –”

“Shut up, Cas. Just…shut up,” Dean interrupted without malice as his body seemed to come to an agreement with his head and he dove forward to catch Castiel’s lips with his own. Thoughts spanning from ‘You’re crazy, he just told you he was an angel’ and ‘Wow, his lips are chapped’ screamed through Dean’s head at the contact but none of them seemed important enough to get him to pull back.

Being mid-sentence, Castiel’s mouth was already open and Dean wasted no time in pulling him closer. Castiel tasted like sweat and damp due to the fever and it was so human that Dean forgot about angels and demons, heaven and hell, and all that followed.

Gripping tightly to Castiel’s shoulder, Dean pushed him down and settled on top, lining their bodies up from chest to calf. Castiel moaned in appreciation as his bare chest rubbed against Dean’s worn shirt, currently experiencing another human sin, lust. Again, he caught on like a duck to water, kissing back hungrily.

When Dean finally pulled back in order to draw in a decent breath, he took the time to really appreciate Castiel’s hooded eyed look. At some point, Castiel’s hands had found their way into Dean’s hair and went to tug him down again but Dean held himself back on his elbows.

He wasn’t usually one to over-think things, if anything it was more likely that he would be accused of the opposite, but looking down at Castiel, self-proclaimed angel of the Lord, Dean couldn’t help but let his mind wonder.

“Should I feel guilty about this?”

Castiel shrugged as well as he could in his position and turned his head to the side, rubbing his stubble covered cheek across the pillow. “I am no longer an angel and never will be again. Make of that what you will.”

Dean nodded, making a face that hopefully conveyed deep though, then felt no guilt about dipping his head to brush his lips against Castiel’s throat. “Whatever you say, Father,” he murmured into Castiel’s skin while hiding a teasing smile.

As if he was in the middle of a very satisfying stretch, Castiel arched his back off the bed when Dean stopped to suck on a patch of his neck. He made a noise that was decidedly not angelic and yanked on Dean’s hair to bring his mouth back to his own. The assault of sensations, the slick slide of chapped lips, the rough fist in his hair and the push of hips, left Dean begging for more.

They continued to kiss lazily and without purpose until they heard heavy stomping footsteps enter the house. With an audible smack, Dean jerked away from Castiel and held himself at arm’s length, his chest heaving from the short burst of panic as they simply stared at each other.

“Guys, we should probably leave soon if we don’t want to be stuck here for another night,” Sam shouted from the vicinity of the front door, completely unaware of what he would have been witness to had he moved further into the house.

Dean watched as Castiel’s face dropped into a look of abject disappointment and couldn’t stop the wheezy laugh that escaped his mouth. It’s not like he could fault Castiel because he too was already thrumming with need and close to twitching with an overwhelming desire to ignore Sam and his tendency to interrupt.

As though he could read Dean’s mind and could see where his brain was heading, Castiel slowly but blatantly brought his knee up and slipped it between Dean’s legs, all the while keeping his expression blank and innocent. The feeling of pins and needles across Dean’s skin doubled to an uncomfortable level and he scowled down at the guileless, unassuming face beneath him.

“Guys?” Sam’s voice cut in again, reminding Dean that if they didn’t stop now they probably never would.

Reluctantly, Dean pried himself away from Castiel’s grasping hands. He was still straddling Castiel’s straying legs when he called back to his brother.

“Yeah, all right, we’re coming.” He kept his words short and clipped in an attempt to hide his lust roughened tone. Close to giving in, he dropped a few more kisses onto Castiel’s face, who gratefully accepted them, and began to climb up and off before he could become too distracted again.

“I know where we need to go,” Castiel near enough slurred, stretched out alone across the bed, looking more like a cat drinking in the sun than any kind of devoutly religious man, let alone an angel.

“Oh, yeah? You suddenly got angelic tracking powers now, or something?” Dean joked while he straightened his clothes and reordered his hair.

Castiel gently rocked his head side to side, eyes lightly closed as he thought.

“We need to go back home,” he supplied after a yawn. Dean didn’t bother drawing attention to the fact that Castiel had simply referred to it as home, not your home. Unless they were going to take a trip upstairs, he found it rather endearing.

“Okay, let’s go. Preferably before Sam has a bitch-fit.”

He held his hand out to Castiel and helped pull him to his feet. The fever had passed but Castiel still appeared lethargic and unsure on his feet. Together, they headed for the door.


	6. Chapter 6

They buried the woman with as much class as they could in the middle of nowhere. Dean and Sam stood to the side, watching and listening. It was not ideal but Dean realised, while Castiel crouched over her body, that they probably couldn’t have made it any more truly religious, what with having a legitimate ex-angel present and murmuring soft words over her grave. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be punished for something that wasn’t her fault, Dean reasoned to himself.

Throughout the whole process, though, Sam continued to send both Castiel and Dean strange looks, as if he was just waiting for one of them to throw up their hands and explode into words of confession. It didn’t help that Dean kept making half aborted gestures to reach out for Castiel whenever his leg shook or he stumbled over a word. Castiel politely waved him off each time, but Sam’s smug realisation grew deeper with every subtle touch.

Filling in the grave was a lot easier than digging it out, and they were soon ready to move. But before they could, Dean felt that he had to say something to Sam to wipe that expectant look off his face, so he repeated everything Castiel had revealed earlier in the morning with Castiel jumping in where necessary. When Castiel said the word angel, Dean had expected Sam to be as sceptical as he had been but, surprising them both, he just nodded sagely like he had known all along. After that was out of the way, he accepted the story just as easily and reacted very similarly to Dean, minus the kissing. He clapped a hand onto Castiel’s shoulder and called him family, making Dean’s heart clench in a way that was not entirely manly.

Castiel again tried to explain why they now needed to return home but Dean stopped him and lightly touched his hip to steer him towards their rested horse. He told Castiel that he could tell them on the way and ignored the smug look on Sam’s face as he watched them move about.

Now they were galloping across the dry desert wasteland, side by side, Castiel clinging to Dean’s waist tighter than ever before as Sam kept shooting calculating looks behind them.

Sam guessed that they were, with luck, only about a day away from the house at the most. For some reason, they’d been travelling in a wide circle again, almost as though they hadn’t wanted to stray too far from what they still thought as their home.

The motion of riding and the unusual stiff breeze that was in the air today helped keep them awake, holding their fatigue at bay. They allowed the horses to rest every few hours but were soon travelling again as soon as they had been allowed to cool down.

They were an hour or two away from the house, by Dean’s calculations and recognition of specific areas and landmarks, when Castiel leaned forward, rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder and said something that had obviously been on his mind for a while.

“Years ago, I left your father something before I returned to heaven, a blade, a special angel-made blade,” he recalled, breath tickling Dean’s ear.

Dean nodded and kept his eyes fixed on the horizon. “Yeah, he wrote about it in his journal. He said it could kill anything.” Dean wasn’t sure if it was awe or scepticism in his voice so he let Castiel interpret it at his own pace.

“Yes. It’s why I left it with him. I think I knew my time in heaven was growing thin and I most likely broke a few rules by giving it to him. But, when I read through the journal, I noticed that talk of the knife seemed to abruptly stop.”

“I guess. We did try looking for it once we knew it existed but, you know, no luck. I mean, I don’t ever remember seeing it around the house and an angel-made blade, that’s got to be pretty recognisable, right?”

“I suppose it resembles a spike more than it does a knife,” Castiel mused offhandedly, whilst shuffling closer to Dean as the horse hit a burst of speed. “But, reading the journal, I was left with the impression that your father hid it and then due to his drinking simply forgot its existence.”

Dean chuckled dryly. “That doesn’t sound too far-fetched. So you think it’s hidden in the house somewhere, this angel blade that can kill anything?”

“It’s what I’m hoping for, otherwise we’re just going to be walking into his reach without any means of fighting back.”

Dean patted the hand that rested almost shyly on his stomach and for a second Castiel buried his nose into Dean’s shoulder and exhaled in brief relief.

“We’re going to get the son of a bitch, Cas,” Dean assured him with confidence.

“Guys, I think we’ve got company,” Sam cut in with a shaky voice behind them.

All three men twisted around and, sure enough, the skyline behind them was dark and seemed to squirm like a mass of worms in dirt.  
“Damn. How many do you think that is?” whined Dean as Sam shook his head and kept nervously glancing back at the sky. He kept expecting to see streams of black smoke erupting from the clouds and start chasing them down. “Hold on, Cas,” he instructed and hunched over the reins, digging his boots in and spurring the horse forward as fast as it could go. Sam did the same, pulling ahead slightly due to the weight difference.

They rode without concern for the horses for a while and soon enough a familiar sight appeared in the distance. But, by then, the storm-like sky had spread over their heads, almost filling the expanse of air ahead.

“We’re going to have to find that knife as quickly as possible. I don’t think they’re going to wait,” wheezed Dean, wind whipping him in the face and Castiel squeezing the air out of his lungs.

The house was closing in when the thick black sky began to stretch down towards the ground. Long tendrils of black smoke moved like limbs out of the sky; spider webbed veins of intricate design swept through the air in angry arcs. The horses darted to the side and avoided them where they could but the movability of incorporeal smoke vastly outweighed that of two laden down horses.

A pillar of smoke swung dangerously close and Dean heard Castiel grunt and edge closer into his back. His hands tightened even further around his waist but it still wasn’t enough. Another sweep and the smoke collided with Castiel. Instead of flowing past like normal smoke, it flickered into solidity and slammed into his side. Castiel tried to hold on but the brute force of the hit sent him tumbling off the horse where he landed harshly with a spray of debris, trying to roll out of harm’s way.

Dean managed to hold on by wrapping the reins around his forearms but he swiftly directed the horse to turn back, once he’d settled on the horse securely again, causing it to whinny in displeasure.

“I’ve got him, Dean” shouted Sam, already curving around and heading back before Dean’s horse could obey.

Like a particularly large and brutal hammer, the smoke focused on Castiel, who curled into a tight ball on the ground, lungs empty from the fall and shock making him unable to fill them again. The smoke continued to slam him into the ground, brutal and relentless, and Dean watched miserably as he rode towards the house, placing all of his leftover hope in Sam.

When Sam moved behind and lined himself up to ride by Castiel, the smoke didn’t scatter like he wanted it to, and instead barraged against him and the horse. Castiel must have heard the clattering of hooves though, because he lifted his head just enough and spotted Sam riding towards him. Still in a protective ball, he raised his hand into the air and, when Sam galloped past, he leant sideways on the horse and grabbed a hold of the offered arm.

Understandably, Castiel yelped at the sudden pull on his shoulder, but despite the obvious pain, he made sure to latch both hands onto Sam’s one so he could drag alongside the horse and wouldn’t get left behind. The rushing ground burned Castiel’s back and side but it was still preferable to the cheap kicks and prods from the smoke.

Sam didn’t have the leverage to pull Castiel up so they rode back towards Dean with Sam almost falling off the horse and Castiel trailing painfully alongside.

The smoke still tried to attack but pulled back slightly when they finally reached the house. It seemed to stop altogether once their horses crossed over onto what was technically Sam and Dean’s land.

Dean sharply pulled up on his reins and jumped off the horse before it was even close to stopping. He stumbled to his knees and immediately climbed to his feet again to help Sam slow his horse. Sam was struggling to think of any possible way of getting off his horse without falling, but in the end, he just let himself slide to the ground, being extra careful not to crush Castiel in the process.

Dust and dirt had turned Castiel’s hair a striking light brown colour and he was coughing up a lungful of muddy mucus by the time Dean got close enough to hook an arm around his chest and lift him onto his feet. More dust billowed off his clothes as he stood.

Sam spared a glance up at the sky and was surprised to see nothing. The sky had returned to its regular brightness and there wasn’t a threatening cloud in sight. When Dean frantically caught his eye, he shrugged, looking just as confused as Sam felt. They both quickly decided it didn’t matter though as long as they were allowed a moment to breathe. Taking an arm each, together, they carried Castiel up onto the porch and into their childhood home.

“Cas, can you walk?” Dean asked as he tried, in vain, to brush the dust out of Castiel’s hair.

“I’m fine,” he replied nodding, while somehow managing to stand vaguely straight on his own two feet.

“Great,” Dean sighed, “because we need to get this place warded. Sam, what are they doing?”

Sam edged over to the main room’s window, pulling back the old moth-eaten curtains that had once belonged to their mother, and peeked outside. He shrugged his shoulders and looked back at Dean in confusion.

“I can’t see them anywhere. Maybe Dad set this place up better than we realised.”

“Let’s hope so,” he agreed before taking a deep breath. “Now Cas says there’s a knife hidden here somewhere and we need to find it. It could be anywhere so I guess we should just split up and search wherever we can think of,” ordered Dean, thinking rapidly as he rubbed his hand up and down Castiel’s back absently.

“His journal was hidden in the wall, Dean, and he hid that when he was sober. If he was drunk, this knife could be anywhere,” Sam reasoned, bringing a bit of realism to their situation.

“I know, Sam, but we need to find it. I think this is it and the knife is the only way we know we can get him for good.”

Sam lifted his eyebrows and shrugged in acceptance. Earlier, Dean had hated Sam’s keen ability to adapt to any situation calmly but right now it was a blessing. Without question, Sam left the room to most likely begin a systematic search of the whole house.

With Sam gone, Dean turned his attention to Castiel and let himself smile briefly at how disordered he looked; everything he was wearing was painted a shade of light brown, angry red scratches lined his arms and smudges of dirt stretched up the side of his face. He eyes were flitting around the walls of the house in barely contained awe.

“Cas?”

“I’ve never seen what it looks like inside,” Castiel whispered back as if he was telling Dean a secret.

Fondness flooded Dean’s body as he watched Castiel take in the decrepit mess of a place with such love and he hugged an arm around Castiel’s shoulders, pressing his lips against the other man’s temple. Dean could feel the layer of dirt and grit under his mouth but he didn’t pull away until Castiel spoke again.

“She loved living here. I could see it every time she stepped outside.”

“It’s a bit weird to think of you up there watching over the house for years, Cas,” Dean softly chuckled into Castiel’s hair.

“It’s different. The fire…”

“Dad rebuilt it,” finished Dean. “I think it kept him occupied for a while, you know. So he didn’t have to think about things.” Dean felt Castiel nod his head and he pulled completely away. “You’re sure you're okay, right? Because we need to find this knife before things turn ugly.”

Castiel smiled and attempted to wipe away the dirt he could feel on his face. “I’m fine, just a few scrapes and possible bruised ribs.”

“Good. All right.” Dean glanced around the room, eyes lingering on the cluttered mess that lined every dusty wall. “Let’s turn this house upside down.”  
\-----------------------------------

Methodically, they searched every room. They knocked their fists on every panel of wall within reach to listen for that desired hollow echo but were disappointed to hear nothing suspicious. With careful manoeuvring, they tilted heavy objects, such as bookcases and bureaus, on their axis in order to check behind them, but were quickly getting nowhere fast.

Sam was already beginning to lose hope, Dean was becoming angrier by the second and Castiel was simply struggling to stay on his feet while hiding his exhaustion very poorly.

“It’s no good, Dean. It must not be here,” Sam shouted down the stairs to Dean, who was on his knees checking behind a broken square of skirting board.

“Then we’re screwed, Sammy, because we can’t stay hiding in here for the rest of our lives,” he shouted back after he’d pulled away from the dark hole in the wall empty handed.

Dean heard a flurry of heavy footsteps over his head and immediately tensed. The thick air of tension only doubled when Sam hesitantly called down.

“We might not have to worry about that for much longer, Dean. Look out the window.”

Dean’s knees already ached from the riding and his muscles actually quivered when he straightened his legs and approached the closest window in a sort of half-assed hobble. Outside, his eyes were instantly drawn to the figure walking towards the house.

His body looked older than it had the last time they’d crossed paths. Creases lined his face and his skin had the texture of a man who had survived quite a few more years than was strictly healthy. The frail looking body, however, didn’t detract from the obvious evil that it held inside. Who else would be able to dramatically stalk towards their house at a time like this?

Dean felt his limbs freeze, unsure where to go next. He knew it was highly unlikely that yellow eyes would be able to see him from that distance but he still didn’t want to move and risk drawing attention to himself or Sam. Sam, on the other hand, obviously had no similar fears because he stomped down the stairs and, with frantic hand gestures, beckoned Dean over and away from the window. Dean moved to the foot of the stairs only because he knew no better course of action.

“What the hell do we do, Dean? We’ve got nothing. If we can get the opportunity, we might be able to send him back but that’s just going to delay him not kill him.”

Dean rubbed the grit out of his eyes with the heels of his palms and kept quiet. And then, as though he was struggling out of a dream, he lifted his head and sighed.

“Where’s Cas?”

Sam’s brow furrowed and he looked around their immediate vicinity, shrugging.

“I don’t –”

He paused mid-sentence and Dean glanced up at him, almost too drained and weary to really care. Sam was staring out of the window and Dean’s stomach plummeted as his brain finally caught up with what he’d just said. As if he was on autopilot, he scrambled closer to the window once more and, sure enough, spotted Castiel facing the yellow eyed demon on the threshold of their land.

“That fucker! Why would he do this?” Dean growled and slammed his fist into the window frame.

Sam opened his mouth to say something, anything, to calm Dean down, but he was drowned out by the sound of shattering glass. Both Sam and Dean twirled around to face the source of the noise and were stuck watching helplessly as smoke began to pour into the room, catching scattered pages and cobwebs that then swirled up into the air.

A large, barrel chested man appeared out of the smoke in front of Sam and swung a completely solid fist level with his head. Sam wasn’t expecting such a physical attack and missed his chance to duck out of the way, taking the punch straight to his jaw and stumbling back into the wall, sending a pile of books crashing to the floor. The man fisted Sam’s shirt in his chunky hands and held him against the wall.  
Another man, more fat than muscle, materialised in the room, almost melting into being through a small cloud and set his grubby sights on Dean. Instead of physically grabbing him, he settled on tossing Dean backwards like a ragdoll with a wave of his hand. Dean’s spine collided with the window and he felt the frame crack under the sudden strong force. It wasn’t enough to shatter the window but the throw still hurt and he dropped to the floor with a thud.

The muscled man gave a dopey grin, waited until Sam looked at him questioningly and then uppercut him in the stomach. Sam doubled over in pain and gagged at the feeling of having his insides turned to mush.

The fat man, on the other hand, seemed to prefer the less physical approach. He walked backwards, creating distance between himself and Dean’s crumpled body. With a second wave of his hand, he began dragging Dean across the wooden floor.

As Dean allowed himself to be pulled along, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts drift to Castiel standing brave and stupid in front of the yellow eyed demon. He briefly wondered if Castiel was still alive, if he’d remembered that he was no longer an angel and his delicate human skin could be ripped apart quite easily. An image of Castiel lying in a crumpled heap on the dirt outside blended together with Dean’s memories of his father lying, eyes glazed, dead. That coupled with the sound of Sam being bruised and beaten on the other side of the room was almost enough to make Dean go limp and careless.

An elevated floorboard caught the edge of Dean’s shirt and ripped up his side as sharp as a nail. It was then that he had a kind of epiphany.

The floorboards. They’d been on the right track, thinking that their father would have hidden the knife somewhere he would have easy access to in an emergency, they’d just not thought hard enough.

With a burst of hope and adrenaline, Dean fought against the force playfully tugging him across the floor and buried his fingertips into the slightly raised edge of the floorboard that was gouging a line into his shoulder blade. The plank easily flipped out of formation and revealed a square of dark nothingness under the floor. Neither of the demons had noticed Dean’s discovery yet as his body covered the hole from view. A last desperate hope made him cling onto the surrounding floorboards and throw a delving hand inside.

His fingers brushed against something smooth and cold, sending a chilling shiver up his arm, but the force pulling him in the opposite direction was growing stronger. Dean fretted over how to move against it and quickly grabbed the removed plank with the hand that was currently holding him in place. He could hear the meatier demon plugging his fists into Sam’s ribs and stomach and Sam’s answering cries of pain. A bit of payback would be an amazing thing.

Dean readied himself with a breath and rolled over, flinging the floorboard as hard as he could in the direction of the flabby demon. His aim turned out to be better than he’d thought, and the board hit the demon square in the throat, momentum knocking him backwards off his feet.

As a result, the pressure pulling him finally lifted and Dean scrambled to the hole in the floor to sink his arm inside. Cobwebs and other decaying matter ghosted over his arm and it took every scrap of resolve left in Dean not to give into his natural instincts and jerk his investigating hand away. After a moment that stretched on for far too long, but in reality only lasted a few seconds at the most, his fingers finally found the cold object and curled around it, feeling a long sharp edge that made Dean’s heart sing. He could hear the demon wobbling up behind him, having somehow managed to climb back onto his feet once more and Dean didn’t have the patience to wait.  
Rolling over again, Dean arched the object in his hand into the space he assumed the demon was going to be; he then couldn’t fight the full body shudder he experienced when he felt resistance against what was evidently the knife in his hand. He heard a hair-raising, crackling noise as his hand vibrated and barely dared to spare a glance at the demon. Curiosity won out in the end.

Through a scowl, Dean saw that the demon’s eyes were pure black but were flickering with a dying light. The body jerked eerily and then fell backwards, letting gravity take over the large mass. The resounding crash he made as he hit the floor caused the other demon to pause, fist still pushing under Sam’s ribs. He slowly turned to look at Dean, who stood up and brandished the blade, hoping that his lack of familiarity with the weapon didn’t overshadow its apparent lethalness.

The demon’s eyes widened comically and before he could even think about flitting away, Dean crossed the room and buried the knife in his back. He would have worried about the sick feeling of pleasure that he felt this time when the blade slid into muscle but, as he watched Sam suck in a breath and flinch away, Dean felt nothing but grim satisfaction. Again, the demon sparked and then dropped to the ground dead. It was all rather anticlimactic.

Sam was breathing shallowly, wincing every now and then, while he stared at the blade in Dean’s apparently capable hands. Castiel had been right when he had described it as being more like a spike than a knife because the blade itself was long enough that it could probably pierce someone straight through with enough force.

“Wow. I wish we’d had this a few years ago. It would have saved us a lot of time and effort,” Dean breathed reverently while Sam nodded in weak agreement.

“Thank God, we’ve got it now though,” said Sam around a groan as he gingerly stepped away from the wall and prodded his ribs.  
Dean wiped the blood off the blade onto the side of his shirt, grimacing at the way the blood quickly soaked into the material. “Yeah, thank God,” he repeated. “Now, how about we go and help Cas.”

He immediately looked towards the window and was dismayed to find that he couldn’t see a thing at this angle. Sam’s hand gripped tightly on to his shoulder for balance, causing Dean to spin his head back to his brother, watching as he clumsily stumbled over the demon-free bodies that now littered the floor.

Dean’s fingers involuntarily clenched tighter around Castiel’s knife and he tried to curb the feeling of guilt that flared up when he caught sight of innocent casualties. Castiel still needed their help; he couldn’t let himself get distracted. Acting as an impromptu crutch for Sam, they hobbled out of the room.

A thought nagged Dean as they moved. What if they were already too late?  
\---------------------------------

Sam and Dean stood on the porch of their family home, the home that had been watched by its very own angel for years, and were met with a setup that they never wanted to see again. The yellow eyed demon facing down a member of their family. Dean wasn’t going to let anything happen to Castiel, not if he could do something about it for a change.

The brothers stepped down off the porch and approached the ex-angel and the demon.

Dean could pinpoint the moment exactly when the yellow eyed demon noticed him and Sam moving up behind Castiel because a predatory grin spread across his face and the yellow of his eyes seemed to grow brighter. Rage filled Dean in a way he never knew was possible.

“Bravo, boys, you’re getting better at this,” the bane of their existence praised whilst stuffing his hands into his pockets, probably to stifle the urge to clap sarcastically. “They were two of my most sadistic followers. I’m surprised you managed to deal with them so quickly.” He nodded his head towards Castiel and said, “Feathers and I aren’t done talking yet.”

Dean tore his eyes away from the yellow eyed demon to quickly check Castiel over. He was on his feet, which was a good sign that he was still alive, but he was also standing so remarkably still it even looked out of place on their ex-angel turned priest slash demon hunter. When Dean sought out his unmoving gaze, he noticed that Castiel’s eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. His face was also a strange hue of pale blue and Dean finally placed what was wrong; his chest wasn’t moving at all.

“He wouldn’t let me speak,” explained the yellow eyed man; his amusement at the situation was obvious.

Dean moved closer to Castiel, panic already seeping in, and settled a comforting hand on the small of his back. Through the material of his shirt, he could feel that he wasn’t breathing and hoped that his presence might keep Castiel from panicking and making things worse. Whispering quietly, Dean said, “Don’t worry, Cas. We’ve got this. Just keep calm.”

Castiel was frozen on the spot thanks to the demon’s unseen grasp but his eyes flickered over to Dean’s in what he hoped meant resigned understanding. Dean made sure to stay close to Castiel as he turned his attention back to the yellow eyed man. He was watching them with a raised eyebrow.

“Well this is unlikely,” he voiced, drawing off what he saw. “He told you what he was then? He told you how he stood around and watched as I killed your mother?”

Dean slid his other hand behind his own back, itching to grab what he knew was there, but forced himself to wait. It wasn’t time yet. The hand on Castiel’s back tightened around material and he waited.

“You know, you almost came close to killing me that day, Angel, and I didn’t like that. You managed to wipe out a lot of my men too before I could get away and you almost got me.” He waved his finger in a mock scold. “Just think, if you had, these boys would still have a father.”  
Castiel fought against the hold on him as much as he could but he was already beginning to feel light headed and focusing was too big of an effort for him. Dean kept his hand fisted in his shirt to hold him up and still.

“I kind of wish I’d just done you all in back then. Don’t get me wrong, all this has been very entertaining; it’s just that it’s starting to feel like an obligation to kill you now. It’s been built up too much now, you know?”

The yellow eyed demon closed the gap by taking a few steps closer to Dean and Castiel. The air behind him warped as he moved, like a heat haze. Dean decided that now was as good a time as any.

Lifting his shirt from his back, Dean plucked the Colt out of the waist of his jeans and aimed it at the demon. For a second, he looked surprised, eyeing the Colt in way that suggested he’d expected more, then he just grinned and a throaty chuckle left his mouth. Castiel squirmed again against Dean’s arm.

“Maybe I was wrong about you. Didn’t you learn anything from the last time you tried that, Dean?” He threw his hands out in a way that conveyed complete disappointment.

“I thought I’d give it another go,” snarled Dean.

He tugged on Castiel’s shirt until he was hidden partway behind him and squeezed the trigger. The shot was deafening and both Dean and Castiel flinched at the noise. Smoke lazily drifted out of the end of the barrel during the echoing silence that followed. The bullet had passed clean through the demon’s stomach, leaving a hole in his shirt that was quickly being saturated with blood. He barely flinched and looked down at the hole dispassionately.

“Ooh, unlucky,” the demon gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath. “I really thought you were going to have it that time.” He then snapped his fingers as if saying ‘aw shucks’ and stalked even closer.

Dean glared but quickly became distracted when Castiel dropped limply back into his arms and he was left holding them both up off the ground. Castiel’s face was now almost completely drained of any colour and his eyes were starting to roll up into his head. Dean’s grip on the Colt wavered for a single second and that’s all it took for it to fly out of his hand and into the demon’s.

With both hands now forcibly free, Dean juggled Castiel around until he had a better grip. He shielded Castiel behind his own body as best he could whilst also trying to keep his back away from the approaching demon.

The yellow eyed demon was now close enough for a shot to count as point-blank range and he began to turn the Colt over in his hands, examining every nick and scrape. He slowly and teasingly pulled back the hammer with his thumb, nodding to himself in appreciation. And then, before anyone could blink, he fired a shot into Dean’s shoulder.

Pain flared so sharply that Dean was pretty sure he cracked a tooth from grinding his jaw together. The sudden pain coupled with the fact that he was already buckling under Castiel’s weight sent them both sprawling onto the ground, Dean grunting and Castiel unable to.  
Yellow eyes towered over them both and Dean’s uninjured arm was trapped under Castiel’s unconscious weight. Smiling with all his teeth on show, the demon centred the Colt on Castiel.

“I bet you wish you’d never give up those wings now, don’t you? Because now you’re going to die a very human death,” he goaded and his fingers ghosted over the trigger.

Dean closed his eyes, tightened his arm around Castiel, and waited.

A hand suddenly swooped in over the demon’s shoulder and pulled his arm up just in time, causing the bullet to spiral into the air instead of into Castiel’s chest. The yellow eyed demon actually blinked in surprise and then physically shuddered when he spotted Sam out of the corner of his eye, angel blade in hand.

The knife sank into the demon’s back until only the hilt was visible. Sparks exploded and Sam was forced to pull his hand back as a tendril of pure light stretched from the metal and reached out like a claw for him. Resembling lightning, the yellow eyed demon flashed and jerked and then finally went deathly still. There was no fanfare, no celebratory fireworks, just a flash of receding life and then nothing.

As the body dropped, the tension immediately left Castiel and he started gasping frantically as though no amount of oxygen would ever be enough to sate him. He rolled further into Dean and scratched at his shirt front as Dean wrapped his one good arm around his shoulders.  
The yellow eyed demon lye still on the ground, the blade stuck out of his back like a flag pole. Sam stood over the body, breathing heavily while his arm stayed raised in the air from the strike. He was, almost strangely, too afraid to pull the blade back out, on the off chance that the demon wasn’t quite dead yet. He could just picture a hand snapping up and locking around his wrist. They’d learnt from that mistake already. He leaned over the body; the bullet Dean had put through the man had left a trail and a hole in his stomach and even that was bleeding heavily.

He was finally dead.

Sam dropped down onto the dirt next to Dean and Castiel and simple stared at the body. Dean was bleeding steadily from the bullet wound in his shoulder but he didn’t care and Castiel wanted nothing more than to curl into Dean and never move again.

No one moved and eventually the sun began to set.  
\---------------------------------

Dean reluctantly opened his eyes and was met by a dirty ceiling riddled with cobwebs and unidentifiable stains. Judging by the strip of sunlight that crossed the floor and the choking heat, it was around midday. He’d slept for longer periods before but he remembered feeling more rested last time. At this point he could have rolled back over and slept for another twelve hours. He was about to try just that when he rolled over and collided with another warm body.

Castiel groaned and blinked blearily at nothing in particular when Dean bumped into his shoulder. He was lying on his back as his ribs were a mottled mess of greens and purples. Complete exhaustion had allowed him to pass out immediately once they’d dropped onto the bed, but now that he was a bit more alert the pain was already beginning to make itself known.

Enjoying the rare quiet moment, Dean curled up on his side, watching as Castiel took in his surroundings and then, with a tilt of his head, settled his gaze on Dean.

“Afternoon,” Dean greeted in a voice quiet enough to be a whisper.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel replied with a growl, trying to mimic Dean’s level of volume and failing miserably.

“I’d kiss you but I feel gross,” Dean chuckled and then hid a yawn behind the palm of his hand. He immediately grimaced and pulled his hand away from his face, he felt desperately in need of a shave. He could smell a horrible mixture of burnt flesh, sweat and salt. It wasn’t pleasant.

Once they had regained breath and feeling they had climbed to their feet, and had unanimously agreed to burn the yellow eyed demon’s body. With obvious disgust, Sam plucked the blade out of his back and retrieved the Colt from where it had dropped by his feet. After dousing him in what was left of their holy water, they drowned him in salt, wrapped his body in a sheet, and burnt his remains. The smell still lingered around the area and had apparently soaked into Dean’s skin so much that he was almost choking on the scent. Dean was in desperate need of a wash and he didn’t think Castiel would appreciate it if he moved any closer.

“I do not mind, Dean,” Castiel cautiously admitted and Dean smiled.

“Oh, I think you might,” Dean teased but inched closer nonetheless.

He lightly pressed a kiss to Castiel’s lips and quickly pulled away. He felt strangely giddy, lying in bed with someone he actually cared about while the problem his life had revolved around was finally solved. For the first time in a long while, Dean felt like he could finally relax. He could already feel sleep pulling him down again.

“Thank you, Cas, for everything. For looking out for my family even when I couldn’t. I mean it, thank you.”

Dean was vaguely aware that he was slurring slightly as fatigue tripped his tongue, but the gratitude was clearly there anyway. He smiled warmly at Castiel and Castiel responded with a surprised but equally warm look.

“You’re welcome, Dean,” he whispered back finally, dropping his voice to an almost melodic tone.

Dean’s eyes were already slipping closed again and Castiel rolled gingerly onto his side to face him. The position stung at first and caused Castiel to hold his breath but once he had stopped moving, he was pretty sure he could fall asleep like this, as long as Dean was still within reach.


End file.
